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THE COTTON STATES 



IN THE 



SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1875. 



/ 

By CHARLES NORDHOFF, 



AUTUOB or 



' THE COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES OF THE UNITED STATES," " POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMER- 
ICANS," "CALIFORNIA FOR HEALTH, PLEASURE, AND RESIDENCE," "NORTH- 
ERN CALIFORNIA, OREGON, AND THE SANDWICH ISLANDS,'' 
"CAPE COD AND ALL ALONG ASHORE," &o. 



/^Cr 



NEW YORK: ^^'^ 



D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 

51 BRO 

1876 



549 & 551 BROADWAY. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

In the OflBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Q>(3S 



To THE President of the United States. 

Sir, — I respectfully offer you a report on the political aud industrial con- 
dition of several of the Southern States, the result of an exploration made 
by me during the spring and summer of the present year, at the request of 
Mr. James Gordon Bennett, for the iVao York Herald. The facts collected 
here seem to me likely to interest you, who, I sincerely believe, have failed 
to make the people of the Southern States contented, chiefly because, in your 
exalted position, it was unfortunately difficult for you to know the real con- 
dition of those States, which has rapidly and continually changed from year 
to year of your Administration. Had you been able to examine them for 
yourself in 1874-'5, as you did in 1865,1 can not doubt that your Southern 
policy would in very many particulars have been different from what it has 
been ; for it is your duty, as it doubtless is your wish, to secure the liberties 
and increase the prosperity, contentment, and happiness of all your fellow- 
citizens. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

CHARLES NORDHOEF. 
Alpine, Bergen County, New Jekset, 
September, 1875. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

PEELIMINARY 9 

AEKANSAS IN MARCH, 1875 29 

LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875 41 

MISSISSIPPI IN MAY, 1875 74 

ALABAMA IN MAY, 1875 85 

NORTH CAROLINA IN JUNE, 1875 95 

GEORGIA IN JULY, 1875 101 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



PRELIMINARY. 



It was my fortune to sppnd the winter of 
1874-75 in Washington, in almost daily at- 
tendance upon the debates of Congress, and 
iu more or less intimate friendly relations 
with many of its leading members, of both 
l^arties. The Southern question was, during 
the whole of the three months' session, that 
which attracted most attention, and was in 
public and private most earnestly discussed. 
The Louisiana affair, the Vicksburg riot, 
the Alabama question, the Arkansas mud- 
dle, were all the topics of continual excited 
conversation in and out of Congress. I was 
extremely desirous to find a basis of fact on 
which to found a trustworthy opinion of the 
condition of the South; but was constant- 
ly confused by statements apparently parti- 
san, and, at any rate, unsatisfactory. The 
leaders of both parties in Congress were, for 
the most part, no more accurately informed 
than I ; and debate and legislation on South- 
ern affiiirs during the whole winter were 
mainly based either upon a general notion 
that wo still live under a Constitution, or 
upon narrow views of party expediency or 
necessity. The Democrats for the most part 
dealt iu incoherent and ineffective generali- 
ties about violated liberties. Of the Repub- 
licans, one faction steadily pressed coercive 
measures, which in the end failed of adop- 
tion ; while -the other j)art opposed these 
measures but weakly, because they had no 
certain knowledge of the condition of affairs 
on which they spoke and were asked to leg- 
islate. Thus the Habeas Corpus and Force 
Bill and the Arkansas Message were defeat- 
ed with great difficulty; the Civil Rights 
Bill was passed, only to become a dead let- 
ter iu tlie South, and a source of annoyance 



to its supporters in the next Presidential 
canvass ; and the report of the first New Or- 
leans committee, though based on evidence 
not afterwards controverted, was received 
with so much doubt that a second committee 
was thought necessary — to investigate the 
first. 

Under these circumstances I accepted glad- 
ly an offer from Mr. Bennett to make for 
him an exploration of the principal South- 
ern States, and see for myself what I had 
vainly tried to discover by questioning 
others. My journey began early in March, 
and ended iu July. I visited successively 
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, 
North Carolina, and Georgia; and the re- 
sults of my observations were printed iu 
letters to the New York Herald. These let- 
ters, with some additions and corrections, 
form the larger part of the present volume. 
They became, on their publication in the 
Herald, the subject of a contentious discus- 
sion in the journals of both parties. North 
and South, and, I must confess, had not the 
good fortune to please partisans anywhere. 
It was probably inevitable that they should 
offend those whose preconceived views or 
whose interests they did not advance, for I 
sought only for facts, and did not care what 
side they favored ; but it has been a great 
satisfaction to me to receive many private 
letters from Southern men, both Republicans 
and Democrats, acknowledging the correct- 
ness of my statements, and the general jus- 
tice of my views and conclusions. 

Though my letters consisted almost en- 
tu-ely of statements of fact, I found, from 
first to last, opinions and conclusions im- 
puted to me, by partisan writers, which I 



10 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



did not and do not entertain. It was but 
natural, perhaps, that each side should ac- 
cept such facts as served its purposes, and 
draw inferences from them which were not 
my own. But I do not wish to be misun- 
derstood, and propose, therefore, to prefix to 
the record of my observations my own de- 
ductions. And to make clear my point of 
view, it is proper to say that I am a Ee- 
publican, and have never voted any oth- 
er Federal ticket than the Eepublican; I 
have been opposed to slavery as long as I 
have had an opinion on any subject except 
sugar-candy and tops ; and I am a thorough 
believer in the capacity of the people to 
rule themselves, even if they are very ig- 
norant, better than any body else can rule 
them. 



The following, then, are the conclusions I 
draw from my observations in the Cotton 
States : 

1. There is not, in any of the States of 
which I speak, any desire for a now war; 
any hostility to the Union ; any even remote 
wish to re-enslave the blacks ; any hope or 
expectation of repealing any constitutional 
amendment, or in any way curtailing the 
rights of the blacks as citizens. The former 
slave-holders understand perfectly that the 
blacks can not be re-enslaved. " They have 
been free, and they would drive us out of 
the country if they thought we were about 
to re-enslave them. They are a quiet and 
peaceable people, except when they are ex- 
asperated; but then they are terrible. A 
black mob is a ruthless and savage thing," 
said a Southern man to me; and another 
remarked, " If ever you, in the North, want 
to re-enslave the negroes, you must give us 
three months' notice, so that we may all 
move out, with oui wives and children. 
They were a source of constant anxiety to 
us when we held them in slavery. To at- 
tempt to re-euslave them would be only to 
invite them to murder us, and lay the coun- 
try waste." 

In Mississippi alone did I find politicians 
silly enough to talk about the Caucasian 
race, and the natural incapacity of the ne- 
gro for self-government ; and even there the 
best Kepublicans told me that these noisy 
Democratic demagogues were but a small, 



y 



though aggressive and not unpowerful, mi- 
nority ; and even in Mississippi, a strong Re- 
publican, a Federal law officer, an honest 
and faithful man, assured me that the north- 
ern half of the State, which, with the ex- 
ception of the region lying about Vicks- 
burg, is the most prone to occasional vio- 
lence and disorder, was, when I was there, to 
his personal knowledge, as peaceful and or- 
derly as any part of New York or Ohio. 

Even the extreme excitement of a polit- 
ical canvass in Mississippi this fall, in which 
the Democrats are trying to rid themselves 
of the justly hateful rule of a corrupt fac- 
tion, has led to but few disturbances ; and 
we are not to forget that this State is a 
frontier country, in which every body goes 
armed ; and that it has for its governor a 
man who has neglected all the usual means 
of preserving the peace, or preventing dis- 
turbances. With a governor alive to his 
duty to the State, there would, I believe, 
have been none. Nor is it just to lay the 
whole blame of all that has happened on 
the whites. In the South the negro is not 
always a lamb. He is sometimes the ag- 
gressor. 

2. That the Southern whites should rejoice 
over their defeat, now, is imiiossible. That 
their grandchildren will, I hope and be- 
lieve. What we have a right to require is, 
that they shall accept the situation; and 
that they do. What they have a ri*ht to ask 
of us is, that we shall give them a fair chance 
under the new order of things ; and that we 
have so far too greatly failed to do. What 
the Southern Eepublican too often requires 
is that the Southern Democrat should humil- 
iate himself, and make j)enitent confession 
that slavery was a sin, that secession was 
wrong, and that the war was an inexcusable 
crime. Is it fair or just to demand this? 
Slavery is now seen, all over the South, to 
have been a huge economical blunder, and a 
proposition to re-establish it would not get 
fifty thousand votes in the whole South. 
That seems to me an extremely important 
point gained. As to the moral question, it 
belongs to the clergy, and has no place ip'^'' 
our present politics. // 

3. The Southern Republicans seem to' me 
unfair and unreasonable in another way. 
They complain constantly that the South- 



PRELBIINARY. 

ern -whites still admire and are faithful to 
their own leaders ; and that they like to talk 
about the bravery of the South during the 
■war, and about the great qualities of their 



11 



leading men. There seems to me some- 
thing chUdish, and even cowardly, in this 
complaint. The Southern man who fought 
and believed in it, would be a despicable 
being if he should now turn around and 
blacken the characters of his generals and 
political leaders, or if he should not think 
with pride of the feats of arms and of endur- 
ance of his side ; or if, having been plun- 
dered by Republicans since the war, he 
should fling up his hat for that party. I 
say this as a Republican, and believe the 
mass of Northern Republicans think just as 
I do. 

4. Moreover, it is a fact that the men of 
brains, of influence, of intelligence, iu the 
South, did, almost to a man, consent to se- 
cession, and take an active part in the war 
against the Union. It was, I believe, and 
most of them now believe, a great blunder 
on their part ; but they have paid a heavy 
penalty for their mistake, for most of them 
were wealthy, and are now poor. It is not 
fair in us to demand that they shall be re- 
viled and put down by their own people ; 
uor, I believe, do Northern Republicans want 
that. A few days ago I received a letter 
from a Mississippi Republican, who related 
to me, with indignation, that at a Democrat- 
ic meeting no cheers were so loud as those 
which followed a mention of Mr. Jeft'erson 
Davis's name. Now, I do not admire Mr. 
Davis ; I think him the weakest and the 
least respectable of the Southern leaders ; 
and I happen to know that he is not high- 
ly thought of in many parts of the South, 
where his peculiar qualities are well under- 
stood, and were felt during the war. But 
i I could not help but agree with a Southern 
\ Democrat who said to me, " I don't like Jeff 
iDavis ; but he was our leader, and we should 
jbe mean creatures, if, when he is spoken 
bgainst, we did not stand up for him." 

5. As to ostracism of Northern men, it 
stands thus : In all the States I have seen, 
the Republican reconstructors did shameful- 
ly rob the people. In several of them they 
continue to do so. Now, all the Republicans 
in the South are not dishonest; but who- 



ever, in a State like Louisiana or Mississip- 
pi now, and Arkansas, Alabama, and others 
formerly, acts with the Republicans, actual- 
ly lends his support and countenance to cor- 
rupt men. Is it strange that, if he is ever 
so honest himself, he is disliked for his po- 
litical course ? Did not Republicans in New 
York bitterly criticise and "ostracize" Mr. 
Tilden, Mr. O'Conor, Mr. Hewitt, and others, 
who chose to adhere to and act with the 
Democratic party, while that was controlled 
by the Tweed Ring ? And do not the New 
York Republicans make it a reproach to 
this day, to such Democrats, that they thus 
did? But the cases are precisely parallel. 
It " costs something to be an honest Repub- 
lican in the South," precisely as it cost some- 
thing to be an honest Democrat in New York 
before the Tammany Riug was smashed. 

6. As to "intimidation," it is a serious 
mistake to imagine this exclusively a Demo- 
cratic proceeding in the South. It has been 
practiced iu the last three years quite as 
much, and even more rigorously, by the 
Republicans. The Federal United States 
marshal in Louisiana has used cavalry to 
intimidate Democrats. Similarly, Federal 
oflicers confess they did in Alabama and 
elsewhere. The negroes are the most sav- I 
age intimidators of all. In many localities ' 
which I visited, it was as much as a negro's 
life was worth to vote the Democratic tick- 
et ; and even to refuse to obey the caucus of 
his party caused him to be denounced as 
"Bolter," and to be forsaken by his friends, 
and even by his wife or sweetheart. That 
there has also been Democratic intimidation 
is undeniable ; but it does not belong to the 
Southern Republicans to complain of it. In 
North Caroliua, a leading and intelligent ne- 
gro told me that he and others of his race 
were opposed to the Civil -rights Bill, but 
they did not dare to let their opposition be 
known, because, as he said, they would at 
once have been denounced among their peo- 
ple, and would have lost all influence with 
them. In Wilmington, a young negro law- 
yer was mobbed by his people, because he 
ventured to oppose corrupt candidates for 
office. This was told me by a colored man. 
7. There are no wrongs now in the South 
which the interference of the Federal Gov- 
ernment urider the Enforcement acts can 



12 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



reach. This interference is purely and only 
mischievous. It has disabled and demor- 
alized the Republican State governments, 
whose members, sure that they would be 
maintained by the Federal arm everywhere, 
abandoned their duties, and took to steal- 
ing and maladministration. It has serious- 
ly injured the negro, by making him irre- 
sponsible to the opinion of his neighbors, 
and submitting him, in his ignorance, to the 
mischievous and corrupt rule of black and 
white demagogues. As a result, it has fos- 
tered ill-feeling between the races, from 
which iu the end it is inevitable that the 
negro must be the greatest sufferer. 

8. Those States which have been under 
Eepublican control have been shamelessly 
mismanaged, and are now deeply, and some 
of them hopelessly, iu debt, and with very 
heavy State and county taxes. Such are 
Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi (this in 
county and local indebtedness), Alabama, 
and North Carolina. 

9. On the other hand, Georgia, which has 
been since 1871 ruled by Democrats, has but 
a trifling State debt, scarcely any county 
debts, good credit, and low taxation. 

10. It is a remarkable fact that, according 
to the best evidence I could collect on the 
subject, the negroes iu Democratic Georgia 
own far more real estate, and pay taxes on 
more property, than in any one of the States 
which have been under Eepublican rule, like 
Arkansas or Louisiana. 

11. Wherever one of these States has fall- 
en under the control of Democrats, this has 
been followed by important financial re- 
forms ; economy of administration ; and, as 
in Arkansas and Alabama, by the restoration 
of peace and good-will. 

12. In Louisiana and Mississippi, which 
remain under Republican control, there is a 
continuance of barefaced corruption, and 
of efforts, made by a class of unscrupulous 
demagogues, to set the races in hostility 
against each other. 

/ 13. The misconduct of the Republican 
; rulers in all these States has driven out of 
their party the great mass of the white peo- 
ple, the property -owners, tax -payers, and 
persons of intelligence and honesty. At 
first a considerable proportion of these were 
ranged on the Republican side. Now, in 



all the States I have mentioned, except in 
North Carolina, the Republican party con- 
sists almost exclusively of the negroes and 
the Federal office-holders, with, in Louisiana 
and Mississippi, the Republican State and 
county officers also. 

14. Thus has been perpetuated what is 
called the " color-line" in jiolitics, the Dem- 
ocratic party being composed of the great 
mass of the whites, including almost the en- 
tire body of those who own i>roperty, pay 
taxes, or have intelligence; while the Re- 
publican party is composed almost altogeth- 
er of the negroes, who are, as a body, illiter- 
ate, without property, and easily misled by j 
appeals to their fears, and to their gratitude 
to " General Grant," who is to them the em- 
bodiment of the Federal power. 

15. This division of political parties on the 
race or color-line has been a great calamity 
to the Southern States. 

It had its origin in the refusal of the 
Southern whites, after the war, to recognize 
the equal jiolitical rights of the blacks ; and 
their attempts, in State legislatures, to pass 
laws hostile to them. This folly has been 
bitterly regretted by the wiser men in the 
South. A Mississippian said to me, "It was 
a great blunder. We could have better af- 
forded to educate and train the colored peo- 
ple, and fit them for the duties of citizenship, 
than to have had them alienated from us." Ho 
was right ; it was a great, though probably 
an inevitable, blunder. It flung the negro 
into the hands of the so-called Republicans 
in the Southern States, and these, by adroit- 
ly appealing to his fears and to his grati- 
tude to the Federal Government, and by en- 
couraging his desire for official power and 
spoils, have maintained the color -line in 
politics, and by its means kept themselves 
in power. 

It is an indisputable fact that there can 
be no permanent and beneficial settlement 
of political questions in any Southern State 
until the color-line is broken. While the 
white vote, or the greater part of it, is 
massed on one side, and the black vote, or 
the greater part of it, on the other, as is still 
the case iu Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, 
and Georgia, it is impossible to get settled 
good government ; for the political issues 
will, of necessity, be false, and wiU have no 



PRELIMINARY. 



13 



relation to any real question of administra- 
tion, but only to questions of race. 

The great mass of the Southern colored 
voters are illiterate; they are easily im- 
pressed by exhibitions of jiower ; they are 
readily alarmed about their safety; and, like 
all ignorant masses, they are very apt to fol- 
low a leader. The Republican leader has 
always had the United States Government 
to back him. Packard, chairman of the 
Republican State Executive Committee of 
Louisiana, has, as United States marshal, 
the absolute command of Federal troops in 
Louisiana. Spencer, United States Senator 
from Alabama, and Republican leader in that 
State, runs up to Louisville, and secures for 
the asking several companies of infantry 
and cavalry, to be stationed in Alabama, 
at a time when, as the United States mar- 
shal testifies, there was no need at all for 
troops ; and Perrin, one of Spencer's under- 
lings, at the same time deputy-marshal, su- 
pervisor of election, candidate for the Legis- 
lature, and distributor of Government bacon, 
shoots a hole through his own hat, and then 
orders Federal troops to hunt for imagina- 
ry Ku-klux. Governor Ames, as is publicly 
charged, refuses to stir to prevent a riot at 
Vicksburg ; but after the riot, after forty 
or fifty blacks have been killed, and when 
the negroes are demoralized and feel utter- 
ly helpless, sends for Federal troops, which 
come at his command, and re -assure the 
blacks. Such manifestations of power strike 
the imagination of the negroes, as they would 
any ignorant population, and they follow 
very readily and blindly its possessor. Some 
colored witnesses in Alabama being asked 
why they all voted against Sheats, a Repub- 
lican, for Congress, replied, " because Perrin 
told them to ; " being asked if they would 
have voted the Democratic ticket if Perrin 
had told them to, they answered, unhesita- 
tingly, "Yes." But Perrin, as United States 
deputy-marshal, commanded Federal troops, 
and gave away Federal bacon. 

The leaders whom they thus follow do not 
instruct them in political duties. They do 
not discuss political questions before them. 
They appeal only and continually to the ne- 
gro's fears and to his sense of obligation to 
the Federal power. In Alabama they were 
told that the bacon was sent by General 



Grant, and its receipt made it their duty to 
vote the " straight Republican ticket." In 
some pai'ts of Southern Louisiana the ne- 
groes are still summoned from the field to 
political meetings, "by order of General But- 
ler." I know of a case where a candidate 
for a county office circulated a printed "gen- 
eral order " commanding all colored men to 
vote for him, and signed " U. S. Grant, Pres- 
ident;" and he received the solid colored 
vote. 

One of the most intelligent and excellent 
men I met in Louisiana told me that in 1872 
ho had made a thorough canvass of the part 
of the State in which he lives, addressing 
himself entirely to the colored people, by 
whom he is liked and trusted, and trying to 
explain to them the necessity for honest lo- 
cal government, and their interest in the mat- 
ter. "But," said he, "I presently became 
aware that I was followed by a Republican, 
an illiterate and low-lived man, whom no 
colored man would have trusted with five 
dollars, but who overturned all my argu- 
ments by whispering, ' Don't believe what 
he tells you; they only want to put you 
back into slavery.'" 

So pertinaciously has this base insinua- 
tion been used among the blacks, that when 
last fall the Democrats carried Alabama, I 
know of two instances in which colored men 
came into the nearest town to ask white 
Democrats, in whose honor and kindness 
they trusted, whether they would be allow- 
ed to choose their own masters, and wheth- 
er they would be separated from their wives 
and children. 

16. The Federal office-holders are largely 
to blame for the continuance of this evil. 
They are a very numerous class in every 
Southern State ; and have far greater influ- 
ence than their fellows in Northern States, 
especially over the blacks, who have been 
taught to regard them as their guardians, 
and political guides and leaders. They are 
too often, and in the majority of cases in- 
deed, hut by no means in all, men of low 
character, Republicans by trade, and of no 
influence except among the negroes, to whom 
the lowest Federal officer, even a deputy- 
marshal's deputy, is a very powerful being, 
armed with the whole strength of the Fed- 
eral Government. Georgia has nearly, if not 



14 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



quite, three thousand men in the employ of 
the Federal Government in various capaci- 
ties ; and most of the States I have visited 
have an equal number. In such States as 
Louisiana these men " organize " the negro 
vote; and they do it as the only means to 
preserve their places. A Democratic Federal 
Administration -would oust them ; therefore 
they command and persuade the negroes, 
by all possible inducements, to vote the 
Eepublican ticket. The Federal Adminis- 
/ ■ tration appears to me culpable in this mat- 
I ter, because it has not only permitted its 
I r officers in the South to take an active and 
|\partisan part in politics, but has apparently 
I (encouraged them in doing so. The United 
States Marshal of Louisiana, for instance, 
having the command at will of Federal 
troops, has been chairman of the Republican 
State Central Committee. The mere fact 
that he holds these two positions is a dan- 
gerous abuse, especially in a State where a 
great part of the voters are ignorant, and 
easily misled. 

17. The color-line is maintained mostly by 
Eepublican politicians, but they are helped 
by a part of the Democratic politicians, who 
see their advantage in having the white 
vote massed ujion their side. 

18. Human nature being what it is, no 
one can be surprised that the Eepublican 
leaders who found it easy to mass the colored 
vote, who found also the Federal power 
flung into their hands, and themselves its 
ministers, who by these means alone have 
been able to maintain themselves in power, 
regardless entirely of the use they made of 
this power — that under these conditions 
they should become and remain both weak 
and corrupt. 

The mass of ignorant men by whose votes 
they have been kept in power paid no taxes, 
and were not, therefore, directly affected by 
the public plundering ; and the plunder has 
been so great, and the number of white men 
engaged in it so small, that these were al- 
ways able to divide with the more ambi- 
tious colored leaders, who, on their part, have 
been, as was inevitable, easily corrupted. 
Nor have the colored men been slow to learn 
the trickery and baser parts of political man- 
agement. They were ignorant and poor, and 
saw power and wealth in their reach ; and 



they did what poor and ignorant white men, 
having the same temptations set before 
them, have done the world over, and nota- 
bly in the city of New York. 

While the black vote is massed against 
the white, there is a continual irritation be- 
tween the races; and this mainly because 
the white man, who is the property-owner, 
sees the black, who in most of these States 
seldom owns real estate, used by a few de- 
signing whites, to lay taxes, to make laws, 
to carry on the government, regardless of 
the wishes and rights of the great body of 
intelligent and substantial citizens. 

I know many Southern counties in which 
the colored men pay in all less than one 
thousand dollars of the annual taxes, and 
yet are in so great a majority that their 
votes, massed by unscrupulous demagogues 
of both colors, constantly waste and misax)- 
ply the taxes of the county. 

Inevitably in such cases there must be a 
feeling of hostility by the whites toward the 
blacks, and it is an evidence of the good nat- 
ure of the mass of whites that, in the main, 
they conduct themselves toward the blacks 
kindly and justly. They concentrate their 
dislike upon the men who have misled and 
now misuse the black vote, and this I can 
not call unjust. It is commonly said, " The 
negroes are not to blame ; they do not know 
any better." 

On the other hand, as the feeling is in- 
tense, it is often undiscriminating, and in- 
cludes the just with the unjust among the 
Republicans. Hence what is called " ostra- 
cism" will last just as long as the color-line 
is maintained, and as long as Eepublicaus 
maintain themselves in power by the help 
of the black vote, and by Federal influence. 
That this feeling of dislike and suspicion to- 
ward Northern men often goes to an unjust 
and unreasonable extent is very true, and it 
is not easy for a Northern man to hear with 
patience stories showing its manifestations. 

There ai'e scattered over the States I have 
visited a number of highly honorable and 
cultivated Northern families, who have lived 
there for years. Where, as is often the case, 
these are Republicans, they are, to a large 
extent, isolated socially, and this is not pleas- 
ant for them. But they seldom complain ; 
and not a few have told me that they did 



PRELIMINARY. 



15 



not wonder tliat Republicans should be held 
in disfavor in their States, considering how 
badly corrupt Republican leaders have acted 
in the South. 

19. The evil influence of the mass of Fed- 
eral office-holders in most of these States 
is an important, but with us in the North 
unsuspected, element in protracting ill-feel- 
ing and preventing a political settlement. 
They have very great influence; they are 
the party leaders; if they do not show them- 
selves zealous Republicans, they are re- 
moved; and they are interested in keeping 
men of brains and influence out of their par- 
ty. Unfortunately, they have been allowed 
to control ; and the Federal Administration 
has rejected the assistance in the manage- 
ment of these States of the only men whose 
help would have been important and efi'ect- 
ive ; namely, the natural leaders of the 
Southern people. 

,. 20. Tradition lives longer among the 
Southern whites than with us. How else 
can one account for the fact that you hear 
everywhere of Whigs, and that the real di- 
vision of political parties in those States 
which I have seen is between Whigs and 
Democrats ? 

In Louisiana the Whig prejudice and dis- 
like against Democrats is so strong that 
the party leaders found it necessary to 
adopt the name Conservative. In Arkansas 
the Whig leaders are quietly seeking out 
their followers. In Alabama, when you hear 
of an independent candidate, he is most 
^likely to have been an old Whig. In Missis- 
sippi, even, there are Whigs, but they have 
as yet no ground to stand on. 

Whenever Federal interference in the lo- 
cal affairs of these States ceases, the color- 
line will be broken, and the population will 
divide into Whigs and Democrats. The 
leaders of the present white party will, as a 
matter of course, strive to prevent this in 
such States as Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, 
and Alabama ; but their efforts will be in 
vain. There are traditional animosities and 
differences, and these were not destroyed by 
the war. 

The Southern Whig was usually a Con- 
servative, and opposed to secession ; less, I 
imagine, because he liked the Union, than 
because he disliked the Democratic leaders 



who urged secession, and whom ho believed 
to be incapable and oficu dislionest. The 
result of the war has not raised the Demo- 
cratic secession leaders in the esteem of the 
old Whigs, but for the present they act with 
the Democrats, under the pressure of Feder- 
al interference and to defeat the Republican 
leaders. 

But there are many signs to show that 
whenever politics in the States I have seen 
resume their natural condition, the Whigs 
will rally, and, with the help of such part 
of the colored vote as they can win over to 
their side, will try to secure the control 
of those States. The Whig feeling is espe- 
cially strong in Louisiana, and there is lit- 
tle doubt that that State, and probably 
some others, could easily have been made 
permanently Republican, had the Repub- 
lican leaders who came to the top there in 
18G8 been wise and honest men, and had 
they given the people good government and 
the means of industrial prosperity. 

21. Thus there are in all the States I speak 
of naturally two parties among the whites. 
The leaders of one of these could have been 
induced by the Federal authorities in Wash- 
ington, with proper efforts and at the prop- 
er time, to take a part in the reconstruction ; 
and they could have perfected this important 
work. Of course, it would have been neces- 
sary to take their advice as to the Southern 
policy ; and to give them the selection of 
Federal officers in their States. To give them 
influence in their section they should have 
been called to prominent places under the 
Government ; but they would, I believe, have 
insured a peaceable and harmonious settle- 
ment. They have, unfortunately, been pro- 
scribed in Washington for their share in 
the war, and thus forced into opposition ; 
and are to-day, often against their wishes^ 
united to the Democratic party. This has 
been the gravest error of the Republican 
Administration. Its true policy would have 
been to trust, and to put in places of au- 
thority and responsibility, the most emi- 
nent of the Southern public men ; to take 
their advice as to the details of a Southern 
policy, insisting only that peace and equal 
justice should be rigidly established in those 
States. With such a policy there would 
have been to-day a respectable and pow- 



16 

erful Republican party in every Southern 
State ; and, what is of greater importance, 
a harmonious settlement of all questions. 

22. The blunder of the Federal Eepublican 
rulers has been that they have not taken care 
to keep themselves informed of the rapidly 
changing condition of public sentiment, and 
the political and industrial condition of the 
Southern States. They were, in fact, physi- 
cians who were treating a patient who, in 
1868, was in a highly feverish and dangerous 
state. They prescribed for him a remedy 
which, if severe, was yet effective ; but it 
seems never to have occurred to them that 
under their treatment the patient's condition 
would change ; that a convalescent needed 
different remedies ; that what was necessa- 
ry in 1868 might be extremely injurious in 
1872-74. They have had no faith in their 
own remedies. 

23. There was, in those Southern States 
which I have visited, for some years after 
the war and up to the year 1868, or in some 
cases 1870, much disorder, and a condition 
of lawlessness toward the blacks — a dispo- 
sition, greatest in the more distant and ob- 
scure regions — to trample them underfoot, 
to deny their equal rights, and to injure or 
kill them on slight or no provocations. The 
tremendous change in the social arrange- 
ments of the Southern States required time 
as well as laws and force to be accepted. 
The Southern whites had suffered a defeat 
which was sore to bear, and on top of this 
they saw their slaves — their most valuable 
and cherished property — taken away and 
made free, and not only free, but their polit- 
ical equals. One needs to go into the far 
South to know what this really meant, and 
what deep resentment and irritation it in- 
evitably bred. 

At the same time came the attempt of 
President Johnson to re-arrange the South- 
ern States in a manner which the wisest and 
best Democrats I have met in the South 
have declared to me was unwise and produc- 
tive of disorder. 

I believe Mr, Johnson meant well and 
patriotically ; but my observations have con- 
vinced me that he was in error, at least in 
the time and manner of asserting his policy. 
He aroused the hopes and desires of the 
worst class in the Southern States, and dis- 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 

abled the large number of moderate and 
conservative citizens, who ought to have 
ruled during the reconstruction of society 
there, and who, unfortunately, were pushed 
aside. The result was violence and disor- 
der, not general, as has been charged so oft- 
en, but still very serious, and not to be en- 
dured ; and this lasted until time and the 
punishment of criminals by Federal pow- 
er under the Enforcement acts brought peo- 
ple to their senses. 

I believe that there was, during some 
years, a necessity for the interference of the 
Federal power to repress disorders and crimes 
which would otherwise have spread, and in- 
flicted, perhaps, irretrievable blows on so- 
ciety itself. But, after all, I am persuaded 
time was the great and real healer of dis- 
orders, as well as differences. "We of the 
North do not always remember that even in 
the farthest South there were large proper- 
ty interests, important industries, many el- 
ements of civilization which can not bear 
long - continued disorders; and, moreover, 
that the men of the South are Americans, 
like ourselves, having, by nature or long 
training a love of order and permanence, 
and certain, therefore, to reconstitute socie- 
ty upon the new basis prescribed to them, 
and to do it by their own efforts, so soon as 
they were made to feel that the new order 
of things was inevitable. 

That there were, during some years after 
the war, shocking crimes in the States I have 
visited, no man can deny; but a grave wrong 
is done when those days are now brought 
up and those deeds recited to describe the 
South of to-day. 

24. There was, after 1868, in all the States 
I have seen, great misgovernment, as I have 
said, mostly by men who called themselves 
Republicans, but who were for the greater 
part adventurers, camp-followers, soldiers of 
fortune, not a few who had been Democrats 
and " Copperheads " during the war, or Se- 
cessionists, and engaged in the rebellion — 
some Northern men, but also many native 
Southerners. 

This misgovernment has been various. Its 
most marked or prominent features were the 
unscrupulous greed and pecuniary corrup- 
tion of the rulers and their subordinates, 
who, in a multitude of cases, notably in Ar- 



PRELIMINAEY. 



17 



kansas and Louisiana, were no better than 
common robbers. 

25. But public robbery was, after all, not 
the worst crime of the men who arose in the 
name of the Republican party to govern 
these Southern States. The gravest offense 
of these "Eepublican" State governments 
was their total neglect of the first duty of 
rulers, to maintain the peace and execute 
justice. They did not enforce the laws; 
they corrupted the judiciary; they played 
unscrupulously upon the ignorant fears of 
the blacks and upon their new-born cupid- 
ity ; they used remorselessly the vilest tools 
for the vilest purposes ; they encouraged dis- 
order, so that they might the more effectu- 
ally appeal to the Federal power and to the 
Northern people for help to maintain them 
iu the places they so grossly and shameless- 
ly abused. 

I must, however, except here Arkansas. 
The reconstructors of that State were cer- 
tainly, in the main, a set of ruthless robbers. 
But there were in Arkansas a few men — no- 
tably Governor Clayton, I thiuk — who held 
society in an iron grip, and by main force pro- 
duced peace. They put down with a stern 
and unflinching, and almost a cruel, hand 
the disorders which they found ; they made 
laws which are terrible to read, and they ex- 
ecuted these laws with a rigor which saved 
society, and gave peace to the State by en- 
couraging the orderly people of all parties to 
take i)ublic affairs into their own hands, and 
by discouraging and terrifying the lawless 
class. The result is that Arkansas is to-day 
a peaceful State ; and as it has an excellent 
governor, who knows the extreme irajior- 
tauce of maintaining law and order, the 
State is fairly on the way to prosperity. 

26. The injury done to a community by the 
total failure of its rulers to maintain order, 
repress crime, and execute justice, is more 
seriously felt iu Louisiana than iu any other 
of the States of which I am speaking. It is 
a wonder to me that society has not entirely 
gone to pieces in that State: and I became 
persuaded that its white population jpos- 
sesses uncommonly high qualities when I 
saw that, in spite of an incredible misgov- 
ernment, which encouraged every vice and 
crime, which shamelessly corrupted the very 
fountains and sources of justice, and made 
2 



the rulers a terror to the peaceably inclined 

in spite of this, order and peace have been 
gradually restored and are now maintained, 
and this by the efforts of the people chiefly. 

No thoughtful man can see Louisiana as I 
saw it last spring without gaining a hi"-h 
respect for its white people. The State is 
to-day as fit for self-government as Ohio or 
New York. The attitude of the races there 
toward each other is essentially kindly, and 
only the continuous efforts of black aud 
white demagogues of the basest kind keep 
them apart politically. The majority of the 
white people of the State are well disposed, 
anxious for an iipright government, ready to 
help honest aud wise rulers, if they could 
only get them, to maintain peace and order. 
I sincerely believe that whenever they are 
relieved from Federal oppression — aud in 
their case it is the worst kind of oppression 
— they will set up a goverument essentially 
honest and just, and will deal fairly and just- 
ly with the colored citizens. ^ 

27. What those States which I have vis- 
ited most need, for some years to come, is 
a vigorous aud alert State government; a 
governor extremely vigilant in repressing 
and punishing crime, and possessing the 
energy and courage to use to the utmost his 
power " to maintain peace." Governor Gar- 
land, of Arkansas, set an excellent example 
in this respect, when, last spring, he caused 
a couple of miscreants who had shot at a 
man iu pure wantonness, to be pursued not 
only through the State, but into the lower 
part of Louisiana, where they were finally 
captured and brought in irons to Little 
Rock to be tried. The governor openly de- 
clared that he would catch aud ininish these 
fellows, if it cost the whole contingent fund 
of the State. Unfortunately, Republican 
governors, like Ames iu Mississijipi and Kel- 
logg in Louisiana, do not use the power in 
their hands, but tolerate crimes, or if these 
affect their partisans, make haste to call on 
the Federal Government for help. 

28. The Southern white population differs 
from ours in one or two important respects. 
In the States I have seen there is a more 
marked distinction between the wealthy and 
the poor than is commonly found in the 
North. The numerous class of poor white 
farmers are a kiud of people unknown among 



18 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



us. Settled upon a thia and infertile soil ; 
long and constantly neglected before tbe 
war ; living still in a backwoods country, and 
in true backwoods style, without scliools, 
with few churches, and given to rude sports 
and a rude agriculture, they are a peculiar 
l^eople. They have more good qualities than 
their wealthier neighbors, the planters, al- 
ways allow them; but they are ignorant, 
easily prejudiced, and they have, since the 
war, lived in a dread of having social equal- 
ity with the negro imposed upon them. This 
fear has bred hatred of the blacks, which has 
often, in former years, found expression in 
brutal acts to which, I believe, iu the ma- 
jority of cases, they were instigated by bad 
men of a class above them. 

A mischievous class is found in a number 
of young men in the remoter parts of these 
States, who follow no regular occupation, 
but prey upon the community, white as well 
as black. They are gamblers and political 
/ bummers ; they drink whisky and swagger 
in bar - rooms, armed with revolvers and 
knives ; and it was, during some years after 
the war closed, their habit, when they needed 
excitement, to " shoot a nigger." 

These are mainly the descendants of the 
overseer and negro-trader class in the South, 
and naturally despise honest labor, and take 
readily to brute force. They have some- 
times sufficient education to make a polit- 
ical harangue ; and they are a curse to the 
community. If the Republican leaders in 
such a State as Louisiana had done their 
duty, they would have exterminated this not 
numerous class, which is disliked and feared 
by the decent white people upon which it 
has often imposed itself. To have hanged 
them by the dozen would have been the first 
duty of a good ruler in Louisiana, and he 
would have won the gratitude and support 
of the decent people who form the mass of 
the community. 

In Arkansas this scum was crushed out. 
In Louisiana it was tolerated by the Eepub- 
lican rulers, and has been kept down main- 
ly by the respectable people themselves. In 
some parts of Mississippi it forms still the 
most vociferous part of the Democratic par- 
ty, though by far the least numerous. 

As this is really a criminal class, it will 
continue to commit crimes ; but they will 



not be political crimes, nor will they be be- 
yond the power of a reasonably energetic 
State government, encouragiug and demand- 
ing the help of the decent people, to punish 
and repress. As these young bloods have 
sometimes influential connections, and as 
they are known to be ready with the pistol, 
they may, here and there, overawe a local 
jury ; and if their crime is given a political 
aspect by the action of Federal officers, they 
may even temporarily win the sympathies 
of unthinking people. But a vigilant and 
energetic governor will have no difficulty in 
masteriug the situation, even iu the most 
lawless parts of Mississippi. He need not 
call on the United States. There is nowhere 
such a combination as a determined govern- 
or can not put down, nor anywhere crime 
which he can not punish. In the last resort 
a governor may declare martial law in a 
county, and if he is wise he will take that 
occasion to hang up a few disorderly wretch- 
es. He will make votes for the next elec- 
tion by doing so, for lawlessness is not gen- 
eral ; the mass of the people wish for peace 
and order. 

The country has seen recently two con- 
spicuous proofs of this ; the first iu the con- 
duct of the governor and the people of Geor- 
gia, a Democratic State, in the " negro in- 
sm-rection " afiair, where order was main- 
tained absolutely under great excitement; 
and where the governor, a candidate for re- 
election, and naturally anxious to fall in 
with the popular impulse, conspicuously as- 
serted the law, and saw justice done to the 
blacks. The other case is that of Mississip- 
pi, where, when some election troubles re- 
cently arose, prominent citizens in diiferent 
counties at once and publicly offered their 
services to the governor, to assist him in 
maintaining order ; and Ex-Senator Pease, a 
radical Republican politician, Postmaster of 
Vicksburg, telegraphed the Attorney-gener- 
al of the United States that a posse of citi- 
zens of both parties could be got by the 
governor, to maintain order, in every coun- 
ty in the State, if necessary. 

29. No thoughtful man can examine the 
history of the last ten years in the South, as 
he may hear it on the spot and from both 
parties, without being convinced that it was 
absolutely necessary to the security of the 



PRELIMINARY. 



19 



% 



blacks, and the permanent peace of the 
Southern communities, to give the negro, 
ignorant, poor, and helpless as he -was, every 
political right and privilege which any oth- 
er citizen enjoys. That he should vote and 
that he should he capable of holding office 
was necessary, I am persuaded, to make him 
personally secure, and, what is of more im- 
portance, to convert him from a freedman 
into Sb freeman. 

That he has not always conducted himself 
well in the exercise of his political rights 
is perfectly and lamentably true ; but this 
is less his fault than that of the bad white 
men who introduced him to political life. 
But, on the other hand, the vote has given 
him what nothing else could give — a sub- 
st-antive existence ; it has made him a part 
of the State. Wherever, as in Arkansas, the 
political settlement nears completion, and 
the color-line is broken, his political equali- 

' ty will help — slowly, but certainly — to make 
him a respectable person. I will add that 
in this view many Southern Democrats con- 
cur. " If the North had not given the ne- 
groes suifrage, it would have had to hold our 
States under an exclusively military govern- 
ment for ten years," said such a man to me. 
30. General manhood suffrage is undoubt- 
edly a dauger to a community where, as in 
these States, the entire body of ignorance 
and poverty has been massed bj' adroit pol- 
iticians upon one side. The attempt to con- 
tinue for even four years longer such a state 
of things as has been by Federal force main- 
tained in Louisiana would either cause a 
necessary and entirely justifiable revolt there, 
or totally destroy society. 
y~ There are scores of parishes and counties 

' where the colored voters are to the white as 
four, six, eight, and even ten to one; where, 
therefore, ignorant men, without proj)erty, 
and with no self-restraint or sense of honor 
in pecuniary trusts, would continue to rule 
absolutely ; to levy taxes which others must 
pay; to elect judges and fiduciary officers 
out of their own number ; to be the tools of 
the least scrupulous and the most greedy 
wretches in the community. There are 
scores of parishes and counties in Louisiana, 
Alabama, and Mississippi, where the voice 
of the people is not the voice of God, but the 
voice of the worst thief in the community. 



But the moment the color-line is broken, 
the conditions of the problem are essential- 
ly changed. Brains and honesty have once 
more a chance to come to the top. The ne- 
gro, whose vote will be important to both 
parties, will find security in that fact. No 
politician will be so silly as to encroach upon 
his rights, or allow his opponents to do so ; 
and the black man appears to me to have 
a sense of respectability which will prevent 
him, unencouraged by demagogues, from 
trying to force himself into positions for 
which he is unfit. He will have his fair 
chance, and he has no right to more. 

31. Whenever the Federal interference in 
all its shapes ceases, it will be found, I be- 
lieve, that the negroes will not at first cast 
a full vote ; and, as this with, perhaps, be 
charged to intimidation, it is useful to ex- 
plain the real reason. 

It was everywhere asserted to me by the 
Republicans that without white men to " or- 
ganize" the colored vote — which means to 
mass it, to excite it, to gather the voters at 
barbecues, to carry them up with a hurra to 
the polls, to make " bolting " terrible, to ap- 
peal to the fears of the ignorant and the 
cupidity of the shrewd : without all this the 
negro will not vote. This was the universal 
testimony of all Republicans I met in the 
South, good and bad. 

Now the " organizers " of the colored vote 
are almost altogether the petty Federal of- 
fice-holders. These have little else to do, 
and they give themselves to the work. In 
Alabama, for instance, in 1874, the Republic- 
an State Executive Committee was allowed 
to nominate the United States deputy-mar- 
shals for the whole State. Many of these per- 
sons were candidates for the Legislature or 
for local offices ; many candidates were also 
Federal supervisors of election. They ap- 
pealed to the negro clothed in the majesty 
of Federal office ; they spoke in the name 
of General Grant ; a deputy-marshal could 
summon troops, and could summarily arrest 
white men. He was a very great man to a 
negro. Indeed, a United States deputy-mar- 
shal is a very great man to a Southern white 
man, for he has really extraordinary powers ; 
and in the South nobody nowadays thinks 
for a moment of resisting " the Government." 
"We may fight among ourselves," said a 



20 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



Mississippian to me ; " but if the -whole of 
my town were engaged in a riot, to produce 
peace you need not even briug in a squad 
of Federal troops. You need only stuff the 
clothes of a Federal sergeant with straw, and 
bring that effigy into the market-place, and 
in five minutes you would have absolute 
quiet." And he did not exaggerate. 

Well, take away these petty Federal " or- 
ganizers," and the negro, left face to face 
with the white man, no longer marched up in 
column to the central poll of the county, but 
voting in his proper precinct, argued with, 
hearing both sides for the first time ; know- 
ing by experience, as he will presently, that 
the Democrat is not a monster, and that a 
Democratic victory does not mean his re- 
enslavement, will lose much of his interest 
in elections. " They won't vote unless they 
have white organizers," is the universal 
testimony of the Kepublicau leaders wher- 
ever I have been. 

Of course, as soon as parties are re -ar- 
ranged on a sound and natural basis, the 
negro vote will re-appear ; for the leaders of 
each party, the Whig or Eepublican and the 
Democrat, will do their utmost to get his 
vote, and therein will be the absolute secu- 
rity of the black man. I believe, however, 
that for many years to come, until a new gen- 
eration arrives at manhood perhaps, and, at 
any rate, until the black man becomes gen- 
erally an independent farmer, he will be 
largely influenced in his political affiliations 
by the white. He will vote as his employer, 
or the planter from whom he rents laud, or 
the white man whom he most trusts, and 
with whom, perhaps, he deposits his savings, 
tells him is best for his own interest. He 
will, perhaps, in the cities, sell his registra- 
tion certificate, as in Montgomery in May 
last. But, at any rate, he will vote or not, 
as he pleases.. And it is far better for him 
that he should act under such influences 
than that his vote should be massed against 
the property and intelligence of the white 
people to achieve the purposes of unscrupu- 
lous demagogues. 

32. It struck me as probable and natural 
that some constitutional modification of the 
suffrage should come about in such States 
as Louisiana and Mississippi. An education 
qualification, applied equally to white and 



black, seemed to me evident. But the re- 
ply was, that it is impossible. These States 
have a considerable population of poor and 
illiterate whites, who would resist to the 
uttermost — now, at least — any limitation 
which would aff"ect them. "It is more 
probable that we shall make the State Sen- 
ate represent property, leaving the House 
open to every body," said a Louisiana Ee- 
publican to me ; but even that would only 
make a dead-lock, and is a poor expedient to 
evade a difficulty. The real cure, I imagine, 
lies — after the bi'eaking of the color-line — 
in general and even compulsory education. 
But there is room for wide statesmanship 
in many of the Southern States. 

In Georgia there is a law under which a 
citizen can not vote unless he has paid his 
taxes for the year previous. It apjilies to 
white and black alike ; but it has resulted 
in disfranchisiug a large part of the negro 
population, who have not yet become accus- 
tomed to paying even a poll-tax. It seems 
to me a perfectly just law, and it is likely 
to be adopted in other Southern States. It 
ought to be in force everywhere. If a man 
evades a poll-tax, ho is not fit to vote. In 
the Sandwich Islands I found what struck 
me as a sensible regulation : the law exacts 
of every voter a tax of five dollars per an- 
num — two for roads, two for schools, and 
one for his poll; and unless he has paid this, 
he can not vote. This is exclusive of the 
property-tax, and is intended to reach non- 
property-owners, all of whom have an inter- 
est in roads and schools, and ought, it is 
there held, in some way to pay something 
toward their support. 

33. The negro, in the main, is industrious. 
Free labor is an undoubted success in the 
South. In Georgia he owns already nearly 
four hundred thousand acres of farming real 
estate, besides city property. The negro 
works ; he raises cotton aud corn, sugar and 
rice, aud it is infinitely to his credit that he 
continues to do so, and, according to the 
universal testimony, works more steadfastly 
and eff'ectively this year than ever before 
since 1865, in spite of the political hurly- 
burly in which he has lived for the last ten 
years. 

Nor ought we of the North to forget that 
a part of the credit of the negroes' industry 



PRELIMINARY. 



21 



to-day is due to the Southern planters, who 
have been wise enough to adapt themselves 
to the tremendous change in their labor sys- 
tem, and honest enough not to discourage 
the ignorant free laborer by wronging him 
o^ his earnings or by driving unjust bargains 
with him. 

The system of planting on shares, which 
prevails in most of the cotton region I have 
seen, appears to me admirable in every re- 
spect. It tends to make the laborer inde- 
pendent and self-helpful, by throwing him 
on his own resources. He gets the reward 
of his own skill and industry, and has the 
greatest motive to impel him to steadfast 
labor and to self-denial. 

I have satisfied myself, too, that the black 
man gets, wherever I have been, a fair share 
of the crop he makes. If anywhere he suf- 
fers wrong, it is at the hands of poor farm- 
ers, who cultivate a thin soil, and are them- 
selves poor and generally ignorant. It is 
a curious evidence of the real security of 
the negro, even in the rudest parts of the 
South, that some thousands of them have 
emigrated from Alabama and Georgia into 
the Yazoo Bottom in Mississippi, and into 
the cotton regions of Arkansas and Louisi- 
ana — parts of the South where, if we might 
believe the general reports which have been 
spread through the North, no negro's rights 
and life are safe. 

34. The black laborer earns enough, but 
he does not save his money. In the heart 
of the cotton country, a negro depending 
on his own labor alone, with the help of his 
wife in the jiicking season, may live and 
have from seventy-five to one hundred and 
twenty-five dollars clear money in hand at 
the close of the season. If he has several 
half-grown boys able to help him in the field, 
he may support his family during the year, 
and have from one hundred and seventy-five 
to two hundred dollars clear money at the 
year's end. Few laborers as ignorant as the 
average plantation negro can do as well 
anywhere in the world. 

Of course he lives poorly ; but he thrives 
on corn-meal and bacon, and has few doc- 
tor's bills to pay. Unfortunately, as yet, he 
commonly spends his money like a sailor or 
a miner, or any other improvident white 
man. Very few lay by their earnings ; yet 



the deposits in the Frcedmen's Bank showed 
how very considerable were the savings of 
the few; and I am sorry to say that the 
criminal mismanagement of this trust has 
struck a serious blow in the Soutli, for it has 
given a fresh impetus to the spendthrift hab- 
its of the blacks. Moreover, in Democratic 
Georgia, where alone I was able to get offi- 
cial statistics, the negroes pay tax tliis j'car 
on over seven millions of property, of which 
nearly four hundred thousand acres are real 
estate. 

They have as yet far less desire to own 
farms than I hoped to find. They are, like 
almost aU rude people, fond of owning an 
acre or a house lot ; and in Southern towns 
and cities it is common to find them such 
owners. But, except in Georgia, a compara- 
tively small number, as yet, are freeholders 
in the best sense of the word. This, how- 
ever, will come with time. They have been 
free but ten years, and in that time have 
been unsettled by the stress of politics, and 
have scarcely known, until within the last 
two years, whether their freedom was a 
substantial fact, or only a pleasant dream. 
Moreover, they have, very naturally, enjoyed 
the spending of their own money, and have 
had to acquire mules, farm implements, 
household goods, not to speak of very an- 
cient and shabby buggies, sham jewelry, and 
gewgaws of all kinds. 

In the cities and villages it is a pleasant, 
and indeed a touching, sight to see the lit- 
tle colored children going to Sunday-school, 
bright, clean, neatly dressed, frank and fear- 
less, with no trace of the slavery which was 
the lot of their parents. I think no humane 
man could see this sight unmoved, remem- 
bering, as he must, how short is the time 
since slavery came to an end. 

35. The character of the Southern negro 
is essentially kindly and good. He is not 
naturally quarrelsome, and his vices are 
mostly those which he retains from slavery. 
For instance, it is the almost universal com- 
plaint of the planters that they can not keep 
stock, either cattle or hogs. It is the bad 
custom in«the South to turn such animals 
into the woods to shift more or less for them- 
selves, and here they fall a prey to the col- 
ored men, who kill and eat them. They 
have not yet learned to respect property 



22 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



rights so loosely asserted. But this will come 
with time. Nor are the planters' chickens 
safe. In fact, petty theft is a common vice 
of the plantation negro. He learned it as a 
slave, and has not yet unlearned it. 

He spends some of his money for whisky, 
too ; but he is not an habitual drunkard, and 
is usually good-natured in his cups. Men 
and women, and even children, smoke, and 
in some regions they " dip " snuff. 

It is an easily contented and haj)py popu- 
lation, and I do not doubt the judgment of 
those planters who assured me that they pos- 
sessed the best laboring force in the world. 
Nor let any one persuade you that it is dying 
out. Wherever one travels he sees multi- 
tudes of fat, chubbj^, comical-looking pick- 
aninnies — the country is full of them, and 
their shining black faces and wondering, 
staring eyes are the commonest sight in the 
South. 

36. They are knsious to send their chil- 
dren to school, and the colored schools are 
more abundant in those States which I have 
seen than I expected to find them. I think 
it may be said that the colored people, so 
far, have got their fair share of schools and 
school money. In such places as New Or- 
leans, Mobile, Selma, and Montgomery, the 
colored schools are excellently managed and 
liberally provided for. By general consent 
of both colors, there are no mixed schools ; 
nor would it be wise to force this anywhere. 

It must be remembered that few of the 
Southern States had public schools before the 
war. The whites are unaccustomed to them ; 
and enlightened and influential Democrats, 
as in Georgia, have difficulty in obtaining 
appropriations for schools sufficient to place 
these on a sound basis. The poorer whites 
are still in doubt about the usefulness of a 
thorough public-school system. But wher- 
ever I have been the blacks have a fair share 
of school privileges. Democratic Georgia 
gives as much every year for the support 
of a colored university as for the old State 
University ; and in places like Mobile, where 
the schools are under Democratic control, I 
was surprised at the excellence of the col- 
ored schools, and the liberal manner in which 
they were maintained by the Democratic 
trustees. 

37. The negroes have developed quite a 



genius for the lower political arts. They 
have among them not a few shrewd and 
calculating demagogues, who know as well 
how to " run the machine," to form a ring, 
and to excite the voters to their duty, as any 
New York City politician. Office is of course 
a great temptation to men used to field- 
work at small wages ; and the moderate j^ay 
even of a juryman, with its accompany- 
ing idleness, seems very delightful to them. 
They have long ago discovered their numer- 
ical strength in many parts of the South, 
and do not hesitate to say in some places 
that, as they cast the votes, they ought to 
have the offices. At least a dozen times I 
came upon this saying in different places; 
and there are signs which show that if the 
present political divisions could continue, 
the black leaders would, in counties where 
the blacks predominate, in two or three years 
crowd all the white men out of the Repub- 
lican party ; or, at least, all who aspired to 
office. But they would not attempt this un- 
less they felt assured of the protection of 
the Federal power ; when they lose that re- 
liance, every body, of both parties, says they 
will lose the power of cohesive action. 

It is not strange that, on the whole, the 
blacks, under such white leadership as they 
have had, should have badly misused their 
political power. They were both poor and 
ignorant ; they had no characters to lose 
by misconduct, for it is the misfortune of 
slavery that a slave is a being without repu- 
tation ; and it will require a generation or 
two to establish in them, as in the ignorant 
part of our foreign -born population, that 
quality which we call character. In their \ 
political relations among each other, they 
are as intolerant and as unscrupulous as 
ignorant men suddenly possessed of politic- 
al rights are sure to be. The caucus rules 
with a singular tyranny among them. The 
slightest assertion of political independence 
is resented. The restive negro's name is 
sent through the county or district, with 
" Bolter" affixed to it ; and this fixes upon 
him the stigma of treason. The church, his 
friends, the young women if he is unmarried, 
all avoid him ; and he is effectually under , 
a ban of excommunication. 

38. Unfortunately, the North and South do 
not know each other. Few Northern Con- 



PRELIMINARY. 



23 



gressmen have visited the South ; and those 
who did too often fell into the hands of par- 
tisans, and obtained, ■whether Republicans or 
Democrats, only partisan impressions. Par- 
ty feeling runs high in the South, and noth- 
ing is easier than to get a thoroughly one- 
sided view, for each side has a share of truth 
on which to build up its statements. An 
advocate, on either side, could easily make 
up a very effective case. In Washington the 
Southern Republican's statement was re- 
ceived, partly because he was a Republican, 
and generally a Northern man or a negro ; 
partly because he appealed, not to reason or 
statesman ship, but to the sympathies of his 
listeners ; and often because he was a very 
adroit demagogue, who knew how to make 
his points. In the South I was often hor- 
rified by tales of brutal murder or intoler- 
ance ; but if, when my indignation wa8__at 
its height, I thought to ask, " When did this 
take place ?" the answer was almost always, 
" In 1865," or " 1868," or " 1 869." It is a com- 
mon trick of the outrage-monger in the South 
thus to recite to his Northern visitor tales 
of some years ago as representing correctly 
the present condition of Southern society ; 
and this has constantly been done by South- 
ern Republicans in Washington. (^ 

39. I come last to speak of the future of 
the Southern States : I was deeply impress- 
ed with the natural wealth, mostly undevel- 
oped, of the States I saw. The South con- 
tains the greatest body of rich but unre- 
claimed soil on this contiuent. Louisiana 
seems to me to have elements of wealth as 
great as California. Georgia has a great 
future as a manufacturing State, and will, I 
believe, within a few years tempt millions 
of Northern and European capital into her 
borders to engage in manufactures. Ala- 
bama now exports iron to Europe — in small 
quantities, to be sure — and her coal-fields 
and iron ores will make her the rival of 
Pennsylvania at no distant date. Mississip- 
pi and Arkansas have immense undeveloped 
tracts of rich cotton lands. North Carolina 
has mineral as well as agricultural wealth, 
which ought to secure her a remarkable 
future. 

40. Almost everywhere, except in Lou- 
isiana, Mississippi, and perhaps Arkansas, 
I noticed an increase of the towns. I saw 



many new buildings, and others going up ; 
and observant Southern men remarked upon 
this to me also. Wherever the people have 
been even moderately prosperous, these im- 
provements begin to make a show. The 
reason for this growth of towns was pointed 
out to me by Mr. Goodloe, a North Caroli- 
nian, and an Abolitionist before the war, 
whose essay touching this question seemed 
to me both curious and valuable. Under 
the slave-system, whenever a man had saved 
a thousand dollars he bought a slave ; and 
the accumulated wealth of the South was 
almost entirely invested in this species of 
property. Hence there was no money to 
build dwellings in the towns, to carry on 
retail shops, to make all those improve- 
ments which mark our Northern civiliza- 
tion. " But," as Mr. Goodloe remarks, "the 
money paid for slaves was substantially 
wasted, because the negro will work in free- 
dom." A horse, a cow, or a sheep must be 
owned, in order to be of service to man. 
Not so a man, a negro man. It was not nec- 
essary to enslave him in order to make him 
industrious and useful to the community of 
which he forms a part. Experience since 
the war shows that he will work without 
being owned. It is true, therefore, that the 
money invested in slaves was wasted, so far 
as the general community was concerned ; it 
was a misapplication of capital. With the 
extinction of slavery, this waste of the sav- 
ings of the Southern people stopped. As 
wealth once more begins to accumulate, some 
other and sound forms of investment are, and 
will be, sought for it. It will be turned into 
houses, town improvements, and, above all, 
I believe, into factories of various kinds. 
Of course, the accumulations of the commu- 
nity will no longer be in so few hands as 
before ; but this also is already found to be 
a great advantage in the South, where em- 
ployments are becoming more varied, and 
there is more work for mechanics of differ- 
ent kinds. 

41. I noticed, also, at many points a 
tendency to a more varied agriculture; to 
smaller fiirms ; to the cultivation of fruits 
and vegetables for distant markets ; and in 
these ways much remains to be done, which, 
when done, will very greatly increase the 
wealth of the Southern States. Already in 



24 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



all the Cotton States planters begin to raise 
corn sufficient for tlieir home supply — an ex- 
tremely important matter in a region where 
in winter the roads are bad, and where it is 
literally true, as an Alabamian said, that " it 
would pay a planter better to raise corn at 
home, at a dollar a bushel, than to have it 
given to him eight or ten miles away." 

No one who has seen the States of which 
I speak can doubt that they have before 
them a remarkable future. Nothing but long- 
continued political disturbances can prevent 
them from making very rapid strides in 
wealth. Their climate fits them for a greater 
variety of products than any of our North- 
ern States. The orange and lemon crop of 
Louisiana, for instance, will some day, I be- 
lieve, bring more money to the State than 
the sugar crop now does. The vegetable 
gardens about Mobile are already an impor- 
tant source of wealth to the place; and this 
industry is as yet in its infancy. In ten 
years these market gardens which are grow- 
ing up will bring as much money to that 
city as the cotton used to ; and, when the 
Louisiana question is finally "denational- 
ized," as a zealous Packard man put it in 
New Orleans, the revival of industry in 
Southern Louisiana will in a few years make 
that wonderfully rich country as productive 
as it ought to be, and re-establish the fort- 
unes of New Orleans. 

Meantime it is a fact that, if the planters 
are poor, they owe but little money. Plaut- 
ing has come to a cash basis ; and a good 
crop is good for the land-owner and the la- 
borer, and not mainly for the factor. There is 
no doubt that there has been much sufFerinjr 
in the South since the war among a class 
of people who formerly scarcely knew what 
even prudent economy meant. The eman- 
cipation of the slaves destroyed at a blow, 
for the slave-owners, the greater part of the 
accumulated capital of these States. The 
labor is still there. The community will 
presently be wealthier than ever. But in 
the redistribution of this wealth the former 
wealthy class is reduced to moderate means. 
It is by no means a public calamity ; but it 
makes many individuals gloomy and hope- 
less, and is one cause of the general depres- 
sion. 

42. Finally, these States have made a new 



experience in taxation. Aside from the 
plundering of the Eepublican rulers, there 
is a natural and inevitable increase in taxa- 
tion, growing out of the fact that the former 
slaves are now citizens, who are taught in 
schools, tried in courts of justice, confined 
in State and other prisons, supported in asy- 
lums, and in many other ways are, as all 
citizens are, a source of public expense. 
This is too often forgotten by Southern men 
when they complain of high taxes. Former- 
ly a negro thief received thirty-nine lashes 
from the overseer, and there an end ; now a 
constable catches him and a prison holds 
him for triai, a grand jury indicts him, a 
petit jury hears evidence for and agaiust 
him, a judge sentences him if he is guilty, 
and thereupon a penitentiary receives him 
just as it does his white brother-in-law ; or, 
if this happened in Alabama under the Re- 
publican rule, his father hired him of the 
State at twenty cents a day, and let him 
loaf about the cabin until his term expired, 
or he became a candidate for another term. 
The misfortune is, that the Federal inter- 
ference has held these States under Eepub- 
lican rule against the will of the intelligent 
part of their citizens, and has prevented 
these from learning by experience what are 
the real difficulties and necessities of govern- 
ment under the new order of things. In 
Alabama, last spring, for instance, the Dem- 
ocrats, who are in power, began to discover 
that " the price of government has gone up," 
and that they could not very greatly lower 
the State taxes, against which, among oth- 
er things, they had long grumbled. In a 
State like Louisiana or Arkansas, of course 
merely to stop the stealing will at once and 
enormously relieve the community, and a 
good deal can be effected by economy in 
government in Alabama as well. But the 
people will discover that they can not get 
back to the old extremely low taxes. 

These are my conclusions concerning those 
Southern States which I have seen. If they 
are unfavorable to the Republican rule there, 
I am Sony for it. No men ever had a greater 
opportunity to serve their fellow -men and 
their nation than the Republicans who un- 
dertook the work of reconstruction in the 
South; and they could not have desired 



PEELIMINAEY. 



25 



greater power than was given them. Had 
they used their power as statesmen, or even 
only as honest aud unselfish citizens, not 
only would the States I speak of to-day 
have been prosperous, and their people of 
both races contented and happy, but there 
would now have been, in every one of them, 
a substantial and powerful Reiiublican party. 
Nor are the Northern Eepublican leaders 
without blame in this matter. They chose 
for their allies in the South men like Spencer 
in Alabama, Ames in Mississippi, Kellogg and 
Packard in Louisiana, Dorsey and Brooks in 
Arkansas, not to speak of hundreds of sub- 
ordinate instruments, corrupt, weak, or self- 



seeking. They suffered the most shameless 
public plundering to go on in those States 
without inquiry. They confided the Federal 
power aud patronage to men, many of whom 
would to-day be in State-prisons if tliey had 
their dues. And they have, as the result of 
their carelessness, seen State after State fall 
into the hands of the Democrats, and, in a 
large part of the Union, the name of Repub- 
lican made odious to all honest and intelli- 
gent men ; while they have crushed to the 
earth a considerable number of honest Re- 
publicans in the South, who, naturally, found 
no favor in the eyes of such men as Spencer 
and Ames, 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



ARKANSAS IN MARCH, 1875. 



The State of Arkansas celebrated on the 
25th of March, 1875, a great deliverance. By 
proclamation of Governor Garland that day 
was kept as one of thanksgiving for the ac- 
tion of Congress, •which, it is hoped and be- 
lieved, restored the State to permanent and 
peaceful self-government. I arrived in Lit- 
tle Eock a few days before the holiday, and 
that day was singularly quiet. Banks and 
shops were mostly closed ; many people went 
to church ; there was turkey for dinner; and 
there were, araoug-the older and substantial 
citizens, not a few heart-felt words of grati- 
tude for quiet and peace, aud the hope of 
prosperity. 

Aud that, so far as one could see, was all. 

The streets were not crowded, though the 
day was as long as a June day with us. I 
heard absolutely no political discussion ei- 
ther in streets or hotels. Poker Jack's ar- 
rival in the morning did not create even a 
ripple ; and though there were probably a 
good number of disappointed men among 
the adherents of Brooks, it looked very much 
as though both parties were glad to see the 
battle ended. 

ludeed, there is no doubt about the mat- 
ter, for everywhere throughout the State re- 
ports sbow that the general settlement is 
accepted as final, and industry is reviving. 
More cotton and grain are beiiig planted 
than in previous years; houses and fences 
are being repaired ; fewer men are idle ; 
there is a notable and sudden decrease of 
street-loungers, black and white, in Little 
Eock. 

People are going to work again. It is 
creditable to both parties that, so far as I 
hear and have been able to observe, there is 
no bitterness of feeling, no resentment. The 
victors are too well pleased to be any thing 
but good-humored, and the vanquished take 
their defeat in good part. One of the most 
zealous, and, during the winter, which he 
spent in "SVasbingtou, ferocious Brooks men, 



a colored man, said to me, ""What we need 
now is men and capital ; we have peace se- 
cured ; we are done with politics for a while, 
and will all go to work in earnest to recover 
our losses and make the State rich. Give 
us only a good crop this year, aud we'll be 
out of the woods." 

The truth is, it was time for strife to end. 
Nobody of either party who had any thing, 
even his labor, to lose, could any longer af- 
ford it. Here are a few figures which prove 
it: V, 

Arkansas has less than 650,000 people. It 
has about 120,000 voters. These owed in 
18G8, when reconstruction began in this 
State, about .$3,500,000, and had $319,000 in 
cash in their treasury. The debt was State 
debt. The counties owed little or nothing. 

To-day, after seven years, the State owes 
at least §15,700,000, and most of the counties 
have debts of their own sufficient to make 
them bankrupt. And for this huge indebt- 
edness, which amounts for State, counties, 
town, and school districts to probably $20- 
000,000, the people have nothing to show, 
except some miles of railroad, on which they 
must pay for their passage whenever they 
travel. There are no new public buildings ; 
neither science nor the arts have been ad- 
' vanced ; the old State-house looks as dilap- 
idated as when the reconstruction began, 
and has been changed in nothing except 
having its door- lintels mutilated that a 
Brooks cannon might be squeezed into the 
hall ; the schools are almost all closed be- 
cause the school fund was stolen ; and Lit- 
tle Rock is unpaved, though the conquerors 
of 1868 issued nearly shinplasters enough to 
pave all the streets handsomely with the pa- 
per itself, aud bonds enough besides to make 
dry crossings at the corners. 

The State debt alone amounts to-day to 
more than $115 for every voter. State, coun- 
ty, township, and school debts, including 
scrip of all kinds, would probably bring the 



30 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



voters in debt $175 per head. And the whole 
of this prodigious burden has been laid upon 
an impoverished, and never very prosperous, 
people in seven years. 

Arkansas was, in 1868, a tempting prize to 
speculators. It had a trivial debt, a hand- 
some little sum in cash in the Treasury, hard- 
ly any railroads, and a people singularly in- 
nocent of political wiles. The young and 
enterprising men who then flocked in and 
seized on power, and who held it so many 
years, had had some experience in what we 
call "politics." " We showed them some new 
tricks," said one of them to me ; " the damned 
fools didn't know a thing about organization. 
They just went around the State making 
stump-speeches, and thought that was poli- 
tics. But that thing's played out." 

The new regime framed a constitution ad- 
mirably suited to their ends, of which I shall 
speak further on. And then they began the 
work of plunder with an act granting State 
aid bonds to railroads to the extent of 800 
miles, at $15,000 per mile, or $10^000 for such 
roads as had also land-grants. Under this 
law 271 miles of road were built, of which 
the Fort Smith road is well built and well 
planned for 100 miles, and is to be completed. 
It has received $1,000,000 of bonds. The 
Memphis and Little Eock Company built 45 
miles, and received $1,200,000, or $750,000 
more than it should have got. The Ouachi- 
ta Company built 28 miles, and got $600,000, 
or $180,000 more than it should have got. 
The Arkansas Central built 38 miles, and got 
$1,350,000 ; under the law it was entitled to 
but $570,000. This was called Senator Dor- 
eey's road. The Pine Bluff Company built 
"70 miles, and got $1,200,000, or $150,000 more 
than its share. 

The whole issue of railroad aid bonds 
made by the State in less than four years 
amounts to $5,350,000. Many of the roads 
were not needed ; all but the Fort Smith 
and the Memphis are unfinished, and will for 
some time remain so ; $1,110,000 more bonds 
were issued than even these fragments of 
roads were entitled to ; the roads were to 
pay the interest, but of course did not ; and 
the State now owes the whole sura, and, 
when it can, must pay the interest as well 
as the principal. Citizens of Little Rock 
point out to a visitor a number of pleasant 
residences at the new or court end of the 
straggling town, which, they say, were built 
by the men who handled these bonds. 

Next, in 1871, were issued $3,005,846 in 



levee bonds. The law authorizing this issue 
provided that no levees should be built ex- 
cept on the application of a majority of the 
property -holders to be benefited, and then 
only in a specified way, and the land bene- 
fited was held for the payment of interest 
and principal of the bonds. Regular sur- 
veys were to be made, and competent engi- 
neers were to decide, after all, whether the 
levee should be built. In practice, one or 
two engineers and half a dozen contractors 
made a ring and built levees wherever they 
pleased ; no formal petitions were required, 
no proper surveys made; logs and timber, 
and even empty flour and beef barrels were 
crammed into the bank, and meantime the 
levee commissioner issued bonds whenever 
any body whom he knew asked for them, 
and actually kept no books to show to whom, 
for what work, or when they were issued. 
The first freshet washed most of these levees 
away, and of those that stood, many were 
so misplaced that planters were ruined, be- 
cause the levees, intended to keej) the water 
out, only kept it in. 

Fortunately, the contractors and swindlers 
took their pay and plunder in bonds. The 
swindle was too gross, and the bonds fell in 
value till they sold in the market for six or 
eight cents on the dollar. The planters re- 
sisted in the courts the payment of interest 
demanded of them, and so carelessly had the 
whole work been done, that the courts have 
held them exempt, because the most simple 
forms of law had not been complied with, 
and it is now believed that the Levee Ring 
failed to get rich by its plunder. But the 
State owes on these bonds still. 

Next came the issue of scrip. The taxes 
and bonds were not enough for the re- 
constructers. They began to issue State, 
county, township, and even school scrip — 
notes of hand of these corporations, some 
interest-bearing. They issued State scrip 
at such a rate that by May, 1874, $3,240,000 
of this stuff had been taken up and destroy- 
ed, and there is supposed to be $1,500,000 of 
it afloat still. 

But these big thefts are not nearly as 
amusing as the smaller ones. One man. 
Speaker of the Assembly, for instance, got 
the people of Clark County to issue $100,000 
in bonds to the Ouachita Valley Railroad, 
of which he was president. He found a 
broker in New York who offered him eighty 
per cent, for these bonds, on condition that 
he would get a responsible bank to guar- 



ARKANSAS IN MAECH, 1875. 



31 



antee the payment of tlie interest for five 
years. He deposited •with a bank $30,000, 
which was the interest for five years at six 
per cent. ; received at once $80,000 for his 
bonds, and of course pocketed $50,000 by 
this pretty transaction. He did not even 
take the trouble to return to Arkansas, and 
is now said to be living in Colorado. 

In 1873, Faulkner County was formed out 
of fragments of surrounding counties. This 
making new counties was a custom of the 
reconstructers. They thus created new of- 
fices. The new Faulkner County had no 
debt. It had no public buildings, and has 
none yet, except an eight-by-ten court-house 
given it by a Methodist church. It contains 
7000 people, and has a property valuation 
of about $900,000, Two young New Yorkers 
were appointed sheriff and county clerk by 
the governor. They collected the first year 
about $40,000 in taxes; and this being in- 
sufficient for their uses, they issued county 
scrip for $50,000 more. They collected the 
taxes in greenbacks, and turned them in in 
depreciated State scrip, some of which they 
bought at thirty-five cents on the dollar. 
They sold offices, released prisoners, engaged 
in fraudulent registration, and, finallj^, they 
departed with their plunder, and the State 
knows them no more. 

In Little Rock, the collector of taxes open- 
ly engaged in brokerage, took out a Federal 
license as a broker, and then drove a thriv- 
ing trade with the citizens when they came 
to pay their taxes. You must understand 
that all State and county scrip was receiva- 
ble at par for taxes. If a citizen had to pay 
$50 for taxes, he might buy scrip at thirty 
cents, and pay it in at jiar. But the collect- 
or bought scrip beforehand, when the mar- 
ket was low, and made his own bargain 
with the citizen. It is said he made his of- 
fice worth $100,000 a year. His way was to 
demand a moiety of the tax, but in green- 
backs. For this he gave a receipt in full. 
Then he kept the greenbacks, and turned 
into the treasury in their place the scrip 
he had bought up cheaply. This atrocious 
form of swindling became so universal that 
I have been told only one county tax col- 
lector in the whole State has uniformly 
turned into the treasury the same money 
which he received ; and this when the allow- 
ances of the assessors and collectors were 
so great that in some years it cost twenty 
per cent, to collect the State revenue. 

The reconstructers were wise in their gen- 



eration. They not only robbed at wholesale 
and retail, but they took care to preserve 
their own supremacy. The constitution of 
1868 gave the governor the appointment of 
almost all the local officers, even to the jus- 
tices of the peace and registrars of elections. 
The governor, of course, selected his own 
adherents, and did not scruple to send them 
from Little Rock, sometimes a hundred miles 
away, into a strange county. So loosely was 
business conducted that when the new coun- 
ty of Howard was created, in 1873, an illiter- 
ate carpenter of Little Rock, being appoint- 
ed county clerk, began his career by having 
county scrip printed before he even went 
down to take up his office, and issued the 
first of this scrip in Little Rock in payment 
for an ambulance to take his family to How- 
ard County. Scrip of this county is now 
worth from ten to fifteen cents — and no 
wonder. 

Again, in Little Rock the merchants got 
alarmed at the overissue of scrip in 1869, 
and took the plates from which these shin- 
plasters were printed from the mayor's office 
and destroyed them. But presently it was 
discovered that no account had been kept 
by the mayor of the cxuantity printed and 
issued, and to this day, though ten thousand 
dollars' worth of the stuff has been redeem- 
ed more comes in, and no man can tell how 
much remains behind. , 

There is a small bridge in Eagle township, 
near Little Rock, Avhich cost to build it five 
hundred dollars. Jack Agery, a colored man, 
was engaged to make some repairs on it. He 
brought in a bill for nine hundred dollars ; 
scrip was then worth ten cents, and he re- 
ceived his pay in it, amounting to nine thou- 
sand dollars, which the county must some 
day redeem at par. 

Sam Mallory, formerly engine-driver on 
the Erie Railroad, became here a general of 
militia, and State senator in 1871 ; was later 
made commissioner to audit old militia bills, 
and among the accounts allowed by him and 
paid was one for coffee-mills at seventeen 
dollars apiece. 

Meantime taxes rose, until in Pulaski 
County, of which Little Rock is a part, they 
were at five per cent., and in some counties 
seven and three -tenths. Pulaski County 
scrip went down to ten cents, school-war- 
rants were bought at six, and some were 
worth no more when I was there. Other 
counties were but little better off, and the 
book-keeping has been such that it is im- 



32 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



possible to tell how mucli is really owed. In 
Pulaski County even the register of bonds 
has been, as an ofiQcial advertisement in the 
papers says, " lost or stolen," and the bond- 
holders are now requested to come forward 
and register their bonds before the coupons 
shall be paid. 

To return to the railroads. Where their 
embankments would serve as levees they 
were allowed levee bonds in addition to the 
aid bonds ; and, not content with this, in one 
case twenty miles of track having been laid 
on a road, accejited, and the bonds received, 
the iron was taken up and removed to anoth- 
er road, where it sufficed to obtain from the 
treasury another three hundred thousand 
dollars in bonds. 

The reconstruction constitution in 1868, 
under which Arkansas was supposed to en- 
joy a Eepublicau government, is an able and 
ingenious instrument, said to have been 
framed at Washington. It established an' 
extremely centralized and despotic adminis- 
tration. 

/ The governor appointed nearly all the lo- 
cal officers in counties and townships, and 
he had the power to fill vacancies even in 
the few offices he did not originally name. 
He appointed judges, collectors, and assess- 
ors of taxes, justices of the peace, prosecut- 
ing attorneys, registrars of elections, who 
in turn appointed the judges of elections. 
Where new counties were created, which was 
a favorite device of the rulers, the governor 
appointed all the oflQcers. Moreover, where 
any subordinate proved refractory — which 
means honest and public-spirited — he was 
removed on a writ of quo warranto brought 
by a convenient attorney-general before the 
Supremo Court, at the head of which sat 
Poker Jack. Then the governor filled his 
l)lace. 

Under this monstrous system of centrali- 
zation, as extreme as that of the later French 
empire, the ring had their adherents scat- 
tered all over the State. They absolutely 
controlled the elections ; they ruled the peo- 
ple despotically. The governor was even 
careful to ajipoiut, in many instances, local 
officers who did not live in the counties they 
were to rule, and who, of course, had no in- 
terest whatever in good government or in 
the decent administration of justice. 

One instance, out of many, will show how 
audaciously they carried out their schemes. 
A new county was formed in the north- 
western part of the State. A sheriff was 



y 



sent to it who lived in Little Rock. This 
person chanced to own a farm in the county. 
The people chose for county seat a village 
near the centre of the county ; but the sher- 
iff determined to establish it on his own 
farm, five miles away. He and his fellow- 
office-holders manipulated the registry-lists, 
but failed to eliminate a sufficient num- 
ber of voters' names, and when an election 
was held for a choice of three commissioners 
to determine on the county seat, his candi- 
dates were beaten. He went at once to Lit- 
tle Rock, where the election was, at his in- 
stance, set aside ; new commissioners were 
appointed, and the court-house, which cost 
over thirty thousand dollars, was actually 
placed on his farm, in spite of the demand 
of nine-tenths of the people to piit it in the 
village, where it would be convenient for the 
public. 

z' All these local appointees of the central 
government had unlimited power to steal, 
and knew it. Indeed, they were expected to 
divide their plunder with the ring at head- 
quarters. They issued county and town 
bonds for railroads ; they erected, or pre- 
tended to erect, new and unneeded publio 
buildings, for which bonds and scrip were 
issued ; they put out scrip on every possible 
excuse, and kept no books or records to show 
the amounts issued ; or stole the records, or 
in several notorious instances burned down 
the court-houses and thus destroyed the rec- 
ords ; they pocketed the greenbacks paid in 
by tax-payers, and turned into the treas- 
ury depreciated scrip ; they protected thieves 
and swindlers for pay, and sold justice at a 
convenient price. 

When the county scrip became too much 
depreciated for their use, the Supreme Court 
— Poker Jack chief-justice — rendered a de- 
cision making that only receivable for county 
taxes ; and when this Speculation had served 
their turn, the Supreme Court — Poker Jack 
still chief-justice — reversed this decision, and 
made only State scrip receivable for taxes/ 

So monstrous was the robbery that even 
now, when the plunderers are beaten off and 
confidence is restored, the average value of 
county scrip over the whole State is less 
than thirty-four cents, and it is doubtful if 
one-quarter of the counties know certainly 
the amount of their debt. 

Meantime champagne was the common- 
est beverage of several hundred people at 
Little Rock, and it was at one time said that 
nowhere in the United States was so much 



AEKAKSAS IN MAKCH, 1875. 



33 



of this wine consumed as in the dilapidated 
little capital of Ai'kansas. Champagne and 
poker were the chief enjoyments of the 
thieves in office, and they indulged them- 
selves without stint and openly, without 
shame. 

The governor appointed the registrars of 
election, and they were naturally tools of 
the ring. Eegistration was an imperative 
prerequisite to voting. The law was so 
framed that the decision of the registrar as 
to the right of a citizen to vote was final, 
the only appeal lying to the Supreme Court, 
which refused to hear such cases. Ou elec- 
tion-day, even if a citizen showed a certifi- 
cate proving that he had beeu registered, 
this did not entitle him to vote if his name 
was not actually found ou the register. 
Moreover, the registrars appointed the judg- 
es of elections at the polUug places, and, of 
course, chose partisans. 

What happened was this : As registration 
went on, the partisan registrars kept a sharp 
eye on the lists. When these Avere completed 
they had some days to revise them. During 
this time they counted votes, and judicious- 
ly marked out Democratic names enough to 
secure the required majority. "If red ink 
don't hint them out, take red paint and a 
paint-brush," was the blunt order said to 
have been sent to one registrar. 

Meantime the colored vote was manipu- 
lated to such an extent that the colored peo- 
ple .were enticed away from their vocations 
for weeks before election-day, and gathered 
in crowds at barbecues and other camps. 
At first the ring had a largo majority, for 
they controlled the negroes, and about twen- 
ty thousand of the old citizens were disfran- 
chised for participation in the rebellion. In 
November, 1872, a constitutional amendment 
was adopted by the people which enfran- 
chised these voters, and enabled them to be- 
gin to help themselves. As the people be- 
came more and more dissatisfied, the rinir 
began to quarrel among themselves, and 
thus disorganization crept into this band. 
Meantime it is confessed that occasionally 
some public thief, who had outraged the peo- 
ple of a county beyond endurance, was shot, 
and public sentiment quietly justified the 
deed. But at every such murder a howl was 
raised that Union men were persecuted, and 
in danger of their lives ; and the North, anx- 
ious to protect the oppressed, ordered the 
Federal power to protect the oppressors. 

These did not shrink from measux-es for 



their own protection. The Legislature 
adopted in March, 1869, a Ku - klux bill of 
the most stringent character, which was so 
well executed that all outrage of this kind 
disappeared in a very short time. In 1873 
it adopted a CivU Eights bill, which is as 
peremptory as that which was advocated by 
General Butler. In the same year they 
brought forward a bUl to establish a " met- 
ropolitan police." Six thousand men were 
to be appointed by the governor, to act as a 
police over the whole State. It was in ef- 
fect to be a standing army, with power to 
interfere in all civil afi'airs, everywhere, at 
all times ; to make summary arrests, and to 
bring those they arrested from the most dis- 
tant parts of the State to Little Eock for 
trial. After prolonged efforts, this atrocious 
scheme was defeated in the Legislature. 

At the same session was brought forward 
a scheme to release all the railroads from 
liability for their old bonds, by a law com- 
pelling the State to assume these, and re- 
deem them by a new issue. It was the 
avowed intention of the plotters to cause 
the issue, first of all, of the remaining railroad 
bonds, between six and seven million dol- 
lars, and to declare the levee bonds uncon- 
stitutional and worthless, which, it was be- 
lieved, would apj)reciate the value of the 
railroad bonds. 

This proposal also was beaten. It was ad- 
vocated in the Eepublican newspaper ; and 
it was commonly said Governor Baxter had 
been ofiered a Federal judgeship, or sixty 
thousand dollars in money, to cease his op- 
position. This, however, was never proved. 

About this time came a change. The new 
constitution was adopted, Garland became 
governor, and the men who had so long rob- 
bed and misgoverned the State were at last 
threatened with loss of power. 

Then they appealed to the Federal Govern- 
ment. Unluckily, the President fell into the 
trap of these Arkansas jobbers. He had forced 
Brooke out of the State-house in 1874, and 
in 1875 he demanded of Congress that Brooks 
should be forced in again. Now, to install 
Brooks as governor was to continue the rob- 
bers in power; and these, rendered desper- 
ate, and knowing that, even if Garland were 
overthrown and Brooks put in, their lease of 
power would be brief, because a Democratic 
Congress was at hand, meant, it is said, first 
of all, to issue all the remaining railroad 
bonds, and divide this huge piece of plunder, 
amounting to at least five, or probably seven, 



34 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875.' 




IaJL 



L 



millions of dollars. Their swag secured, they 
were ready to retire, if they must. ', 

The first effect of the Presideut's Arkansas 
policy would have been to saddle the State 
with all these millions of additional debt. 

I find, by the State auditor's account for 
the year 1859 and 1860, that at that time the 
cost of administering the State government 
was $307,596 for two years, or, roughly, $150,- 
000 per annum. Making every fair allow- 
ance, it should not have cost, from 1868 to 

1874, more than twice this sum, or $300,000 
per auuum, or $1,800,000 in all for the six 
years. But in that period there was col- 
lected from the people iu taxes the prodig- 
ious sum of $6,674,000 ; the bonded debt was 
increased $8,753,000, aside from railroad sub- 
sidies; a floating debt of scrip, demoralizing 
to the community, was added, of $1,865,000; 
and thus the reconstructors cost the State 
alone, iu six years, over $17,000,000, instead 
of $1,804,000, which would have been a fair 
charge. And for this vast expenditure there 
was no return, except in despotic govern- 
ment, broken credit, ruined industry, and a 
dej)lorable corruption of public morals, grow- 
ing out of a depraved currency, and un- 
bridled and open theft iu high places. But 
this still leaves out the county and other 
local taxes, of which I have no exact record, 
and the county, city, and township debts, an 
unascertainable total, thought by the best 
experts to amount to no less than $2,500,000 
more. 

Of one thing I can speak with positive- 
uess, and that is, that Arkansas is, in March, 

1875, as peaceable a State as New York, Mas- 
sachusetts, or Ohio. I assert this on the au- 
thority of leading men of both parties. No 
one whom I was able to see pretended a 
doubt on the subject. In Little Rock itself, 
where most of the political sore-heads are 
found, there is not even ijolitical discussion. 
The editor of the Brooks, or Eepublican, or- 
gan assured me that there is no violence, 
and that a close perusal of the county jour- 
nals and his own correspondence iu diftereut 
parts of the State convinced him that in- 
dustry had revived all over the State ; that 
the people were at work ; and that Arkansas 
promised this year, if the season were favor- 
able, to produce more corn, wheat, and cot- 
ton than ever before. All this was corrob- 
orated by leaders of the Garland party ; and 
as the well-informed men of both sides thus 
concur, it may be accepted as fact. 

Moreover, of Governor Garland, leading 



men of the Brooks side have told me that he 
is a man of good character, firm, determined 
to execute the laws, and able to do so. Ho 
himself assured me that he meant to put 
down with a strong hand any attempts at 
lawlessness, should such occur, and he struck 
me as answering very well the description 
his political opponents gave me of him, as a 
man of decided character, no blusterer, but 
firm, solid, aud likely to be calm, and to car- 
ry out a definite policy in a straightforward 
vjngjuuy'. Of course, it is a great piece of 
good fortune for the State to have a man of 
such make at the head of affairs at this time. 

It is admitted by every body that the 
State has among its people men of a ruffian- 
ly character, idle, vicious, and prone to mur- 
der ; these it is the busiuess of the governor 
to hold to accountability for their misdeeds. 
They are not numerous, aud there is no 
good evidence that they now shoot with 
political purposes. A couple of months 
ago, two young men, drunk and reckless, 
shot at the engine-driver of a railroad and 
another person. The latter was a Northern 
man, but a supporter of Garland ; aud this 
last ftict showed that there was no politic- 
al purx)ose or animosity in this attempt at 
murder. 

What followed, however, shows the spirit 
of Arkansas just now. The sheriff of the 
county, aj^egro, pursued the two men ; aud 
the whole county, white as well as black, 
turned out to help him in the hunt. The 
criminals escaped into Louisiana, but, under 
the energetic pursuit of Governor Garland's 
law officers, were captured, brought back, 
and are now in prison awaiting trial. 

There is just now a difficulty in Scott 
County. This lies iu the northern part of 
the State, where there are but few negroes, 
and the cause of quarrel is exclusively 
amoug white men, and has no relation to 
politics or th^jfiegro. 

The'^egro sheriff, Furbush, in Lee Coun- 
ty, was reported in February to have been 
murdered ; but I saw a letter from him of re- 
cent date, in which no allusion was made to 
political or other disturbances in his county. 

To the one vital question which Northern 
men ask, "Are Union men, white and black, 
secure of life, property, and political rights 
in Arkansas?" I am, therefore, persuaded the 
answer is, "Yes, they are so." 

And this answer rests on the very best 
testimony, that of Republicans aud Brooks 
men themselves. 



ARKANSAS IN MARCH, 1875. 



35 



I may add that the phrase " Union men " 
is not used iu Arkansas. " We are all Union 
men," said a Confederate general to me ; 
"and you Northern people do us a serious 
injustice when you rank only the Reijuhlic- 
ans at the South as Union men. We have 
here life-long Northern Republicans acting 
with the Democratic party; and, on the 
other hand, some of the very leaders of the 
Republican party iu this State were not 
merely Democrats iu the North, but Copper- 
heads during the war," and he cited ex- 
chief justice M'Clure (Poker Jack) as such 
a man. 

Iu casting about for proofs of the actual 
condition of the State as to iieace and liber- 
ty, it occurred to me that if there had been 
unrepressed violence, lawlessness, political 
assassination, and terrorism, such as we 
heard of during the winter of 1874-75, and 
such as the Brooks men during the Arkan- 
sas struggle iu Washington described, there 
must have been frequent appeals to the Fed- 
eral commissioners for protection under the 
Enforcement acts. I therefore made inquiry 
of the clerk of the United States Court at 
Little Rock, under whose eye every such 
matter must come, and he assured me there 
had not been a single case for a j'ear. He 
thought that complaints had sometimes 
been made to the district attorney, but 
they had never been brought before the 
grand jury, and were, therefore, presumably 
groundless. 

The United States district attorney was 
absent, but the Federal judge corroborated 
the testimony of the clerk. 

The sum of my information on this point 
is, that not a single case for redress of griev- 
ances, either political or civil, under the 
Federal Enforcement acts has been made in 
the eastern district of Arkansas for a year 
past ; and in the western district, so far as I 
conld learn, the only cases were appeals on 
the part of Democrats, complaining of Re- 
I>ublican registrars of election in 1872. 

There are fifty-three Federal commission- 
ers in the State, who receive, I believe, no 
salary. The Federal supervisors of election 
for the whole State cost twenty-five hundred 
dollars for an election, when the full list is 
ajtpointed. Now, it is hard to prove a neg- 
ative ; to show, namely, that the State is not 
disorderly. But it seems to me clear that if 
white and black Union men had been seri- 
ously or continuously harassed and in peril, 
they would Iiave appealed to the Federal au- 



thorities established for that purpose, to pro- 
tect them and xmnish their oppressors. 

The fact is, that the Dorsey-Clayton Re- 
publicans between 1868 and 1873 ruled Ar- 
kansas with an iron rule, and did put down, 
peremptorily and effectually, all political 
disorders. For this they deserve credit ; for 
there is no doubt that when they took pos- 
session of the State in 1868, and for some 
time afterward, there was a grave and peril- 
ous condition of society. In March, 1869, 
they adopted a Ku-klux law of uncommon 
and even dangerous severity ; it prohibited 
all secret political organizations, and de- 
clared their members infamous and public 
enemies ; it made even the possession of a 
uniform of such an order a criminal offense, 
or the knowing of its existence without giv- 
ing immediate information to the public au- 
thorities; it authorized the arrest of a mem- 
ber of this organization anywhere, at any 
time, by any citizen, without a warrant ; it 
prescribed a penalty of five hundred dollars 
fine, and from one to ten years iu the Peni- 
tentiary, and forbade the member of such 
society to be a juror before or a witness after 
conviction; it allowed the grand jury to 
summon witnesses and enforce their pres- 
ence, and gave the informer from half to 
three-fourths of the fine. This law was 
sternly enforced, and the "Kniglits of the 
White Camellia" disappeared almost at once. 

This law remains on the statute-book at 
the instance of the Democratic governor, 
Garland, who gave notice that if it were not 
strong enough he would ask the Legislature 
to make it still more severe. This was his 
reply to a charge made in Washington that 
Republicans had been intimidated from vot- 
ing. 

Nor is this all. In February, 1873, the 
Republican reconstruetors adopted a civil- 
rights act so much stronger than that re- 
cently passed by Congress, that, wheu I asked 
whether the Federal act made any trouble, 
people laughed at me. Under this State law 
hotel -keepers, bar-keepers, and owners of 
places of public amusement are required to 
give accommodation to colored people, and 
these are to have equal school facilities, but 
separate schools. Violators of the law are 
subject to a fine of from two hundred to one 
thousand dollars, or to imprisonment from 
three to twelve months. Even accessories 
or agents are punishable, and an action for 
civil damages lies, besides the criminal pros- 
ecution. Officers of the law may be prose- 



36 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



cuted for failure to enforce it, and prosecu- 
ting attorneys, sheriffs, coroners, justices of 
the peace, and even constables, are to insti- 
tute proceedings, and are obliged to do so. 
Many of these officers throughout the State 
are colored men. I was told there had been 
but a single case under this act, in which a 
saloon-keeper was fined twenty-five dollars. 
I noticed that some drinkiug-saloons had 
two bars, one for each color ; but I also saw 
in several cases black and white men drink- 
ing together. The negroes have shown no 
disposition to make the law offensive. 

As to elections, while the justly odious 
features of the old registration law have 
been repealed, under the new constitution 
a candidate may appeal to the court with 
proof that voters intending to vote for him 
have been prevented ; and if he proves his 
case, the votes so claimed are counted as act- 
ually cast for him ; and if they give him a 
majority, he secures thereby the office with- 
out a new election. This makes it to the 
interest of candidates and of each party to 
look after and support the rights of voters, 
and gives them j»ower to remedy wrongs. 

Finally, it is acknowledged by the best 
men of both sides, that the present State anil 
local judiciary is composed of an excellent 
and capable class of men, of high character. 
So far as the colored people are concerned, 
and considering their lack of education and 
training for public business, it seems to me 
that a fair pi-oportion were chosen to office 
by the Garland men, or Democrats, for there 
are now one hundred and sixty colored jus- 
tices of the peace in the State, ninety-five 
constables, twenty-nine sheriffs and county 
clerks, assessors, and county surveyors, one 
militia field-officer, and eleven militia com- 
pany-officers. The militia officers were ap- 
pointed by Governor Garland, and all the 
civil officers were commissioned by him. The 
enrolling clerk of the last (Democratic) As- 
sembly was a negro, and he was chosen by a 
Democratic house. The door-keeper of the 
same body was a one-legged negro, who had 
been a Federal soldier. The counties of Lee, 
Phillips, and Jefferson, where the negro vote 
is very strong, sent colored Representatives 
and Senators to that Legislature. The Dem- 
ocrats even nominated a colored man to 
represent Little Eock in the Constitutional 
Convention; but his Republican friends per- 
suaded him not to acce^it the nomination. 

Moreover, the condition of the two polit- 
ical parties in the State is such as in itself 



to secure good government if the present 
opposition — the Republicans, that is to say 
— wish it. Arkansas has, I am told, about 
one hundred and twentj' thousand voters, of 
whom, roughly, sixty-five thousand are Dem- 
ocrats and fifty-five thousand Republicans. 
Of the latter about forty thousand are col- 
ored men. The ruling party has not, there- 
fore, a large majority. It can hold the State 
only by good and economical government, 
and of this fact I found the Garland men 
very conscious. They do not, by any means, 
think themselves in a secure position ; and 
they see the necessity, politically, of a mod- 
erate and j ust policy, and of general concili- 
ation. 

It is quite true that many of the promi- 
nent leaders of the Republican party have 
no political future in the State. Dorsey 
will, it is said, leave the State. M'Clure 
also talks of taking his little carpet-bag into 
New Mexico. Brooks has fallen into gen- 
eral contempt among his own adherents by 
accepting the Little Rock postmastership, 
to secure which he caused to be ousted a 
man universally respected and trusted by 
both parties. Snyder, late member of Con- 
gress, compounded any future preferment 
in the State for the little fifteen -hundred 
dollar post-office at Pine Bluff, and flung 
out one of his own adherents to get it. But 
with all this, the Republicans are not with- 
out leaders ; and, now that the Federal gov- 
ernment has taken its support away from 
them, these begin to assume the natural at- 
titude of an opposition party, talk of the 
prosperity of the State, of the necessity for 
economy, of the benefits of peace, and so on. 
Both parties will try to secure the color- 
ed vote, and it may be confidently said that 
the color-line in politics is broken in the 
State. The Republican leaders are already 
coquetting with white Democrats, whose 
votes they must secure to regain the ascend- 
ency; and the Democrats have for a year 
past been busy in establishing friendly rela- 
tions with influential blacks. 

It is plain, from what is above stated, that 
not only is Arkansas at present peaceable, 
but, what is of greater importance, the con- 
ditions necessary to secure permanent peace 
and security are all present in the State. 
A strong governor, determined to punish 
lawlessness and crime ; an excellent judici- 
ary ready to help him ; and an absence, for 
the iireseut, of all political excitement and 
animosity, are the means; but the cessa- 



AEKANSAS IN MAECH, 1875. 



37 



tion of Federal interference, and the necessi- 
ty wliicli lies upon both parties to court the 
negro vote, and to maintain, and promise to 
maintain, peace and order, are the main ele- 
ments. 

It is just now (in March, 1875) probable 
that the Democrats ■will carry the State in 
1876; but it is by no means certain. A thor- 
ough reorganization of parties is certain : 
when it will happen is only a question of 
time. The Democratic side has a dissatis- 
fied element, which may bolt, and endeavor 
to form a coalition with a part of the Ee- 
pubUcau party. The leaders on both sides 
are distrustful, and one hears here, curious- 
ly enough, the old word " Whig" as a potent 
political watchword. If one could imagine 
such a resurrection, he would think that 
these Arkansans would by-aud-by si)lit off 
into Whigs and Democrats. • 

But, whatever happens, the qegro is safe, 
for his vote — which can only be got by kind 
treatment — will be sought by the leaders 
of both parties, and he who wrongs a black 
man will lose votes. That, in the long run, 
the old planters will secure a large share of 
the li^egro vote is highly probable. They 
would bo inii)racticable fools if they did 
not, for they know the j^egro's weak and 
strong points better than any one else. 
What pleased me was to hear constantly 
from old Arkansans — former slave-holders — 
when I inquired about'i^egro peculiarities, 
the answer, " They're just like white men ; 
take them under any circumstances, and 
they'll act just as white men would." 

The reconstructors of Arkansas have been 
too busy issuing bonds and scrip and ma- 
nipulating laws since 1868 to pay attention 
to industrial statistics. Hence I could get 
but scant and uncertain answers to many 
questions affecting the real interests of the 
State. A leading politician could tell me 
readily enough how many black voters there 
are, and why these are more numerous in 
proportion to population than white voters, 
which is because, formerly, mainly adult ne- 
groes were brought in as slaves, and since 
the war the small colored immigration has 
consisted largely of colored men, seeking po- 
litical and other adventures. But when I 
asked the same man the more important 
question, how many colored real-estate own- 
ers the State has, he had not the least idea. I 
believe Governor Garland means to draw in- 
formation of this kind from the sheriffs of the 
counties, who are also often tax-coUectors. 



Arkansas, as viewed from a railroad car, 
is not a charming country to a Northern eye. 
It seems to contain a good deal of thin and 
worthless land, and where you meet with 
cultivation the farms have a ragged and un- 
combed look, the farm buildings are usual- 
ly of a poor character, and very high fences 
show that stock is allowed to run wild. Fields 
are oftenest full of stumps; and in the cotton 
region " deadenings," or fields with girdled 
and decaying trees standing upon them, give 
the landscape a melancholy aspect. 

But, after all, it is useful for a Northern 
man to remember that dead trees and stumps 
are more economical than a cleaner culture 
where labor is scarce, and that the Arkansas 
farmer does not need as solid a house as his 
countryman in New York or Massachusetts. 
Though the farms and plantations of the 
State have too often an unprosperous look, 
the census-tables of 1870 disclose the singu- 
lar fact that the value of the agricultural 
product of that year in the State equaled the 
assessed value of all the farms and planta- 
tions, which, if it is a correct statement, 
would make Arkansas one of the richest of 
our agricultural States. 

The State is divided, by natural configu- 
ration, into two sections, the south and east 
producing mainly corn and cotton ; the north 
and north-west, which is mountainous, yield- 
ing wheat and other grains. In the latter 
part there are but few colored people, and 
here, during the war, were found Union men, 
who fought vigorously for the old flag, either 
as volunteers or guerrillas. 

The richest and most productive lands of 
the State are, of course, the river-bottoms, 
and here are found the most colored people. 
The Arkansas negro prefers, it seems, to raise 
corn and cotton. He suffers less from mala- 
ria than the white, and he likes the bottom- 
lands. 

Of the forty thousand negro voters in the 
State, it is believed that at least one in twen- 
ty owns ejther a farm, or a house and lot in 
a town. XThis would give but two thousand 
such independent land-holders — asmallnum- 
ber, but yet a beginning, showing that, even 
amidst the intense and incessant political 
turmoil of the last seven years, a part of the 
colored men have been persistently indus- 
trious and economical. In that part of the 
cotton country which I saw, I heard of a 
number of negroes who had bought farms, 
and not uncommonly a manager or planter 
would say, " There's Jim ; he's going to buy 



38 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



land next year if this crop turns out well." 
In one negro cabin the woman told me her 
husband had lost six hundred dollars in the 
Freedman's Bank, and seemed delighted 
when the planter told her she would prob- 
ably get back a part of it. 

I was shown a black man who bought a 
farm of eighty acres last year — all cleared 
cotton land — for four thousand dollars, pay- 
ins seven hundred dollars down. On the 
remainder he was to pay ten per cent, inter- 
est, and the planter who sold it to him told 
me he would make it all safely out of the 
farm. This man had genuine energy, for 
he employed other negroes to cultivate his 
own farm, and himself worked fifty acres of 
rented laud. " He gets more out of his peo- 
ple than I could," said the planter to rae ; 
"he'll hire some women, aud get a man's 
work out of every one of them." 

The usual manner of working the cotton 
lands is to let them, either on shares or for 
a fixed price per acre. Some planters hire 
their laborers by the mouth or year, but it 
is not thought a profitable i)lan, aud I be- 
lieve it is not so well liked by the negroes. 
The rich bottom-lands are worth from thirty 
to fifty dollars per acre, according to loca- 
tion and condition. Where land is let for a 
share of the crop the renter usually pays the 
owner from eighty to ninety pounds of clean 
cotton per acre. If he has good luck he can 
raise four hundred pounds to the acre, and 
he aims to get also corn enough for himself 
and his stock. In such case the owner gins 
all the cotton, and he supplies, besides the 
land, fenciug, fire-wood, a house which even 
if very good will not cost more than two 
hundred and fifty dollars, and often is a mere 
log-cabin, and range for stock. The renter 
must have his own teams and tools, aud must 
pay for extra labor for picking his cotton if 
he needs it. For twelve acres he ought to 
have a mule, plow, hoes, and seed; aud he 
may get eight bales of cotton, of which two 
would go for rent, aud the net remainder 
would be worth three hundred dollars, be- 
sides the value of his corn. The planter or 
land-owner usually expects to make his peo- 
ple advances of food and clothiug ; and it is 
evident, from what I have seen and heard, 
that the greater number of the people are 
careless aud do not lay up money. That 
they can, however, is shown by many in- 
stances. 

Where a planter hires laborers, colored 
men receive from fifteen to eighteen dollars 



a month and board, or one dollar a day if 
they feed themselves. Women, employed in 
hoeing cotton, receive as much as men if 
they do a full day's work. I could not learn 
that any difference in wages is made by rea- 
son of color ; but negro laborers are thought 
to be more peaceable and more easily pro- 
vided for than whites. General Churchill, 
uow State treasurer, told me that some of 
his former slaves were still on his plantation 
as renters. Several managed forty or fifty 
acres each. He found no difficulty in col- 
lecting his dues from them, and liked them 
as renters ; but -he remarked to me that the 
young colored people do not farm so well as 
their fathers, and more of them seek some 
other emph)yment. 

The favorite method, I think, is to rent 
cotton land for a fixed price per acre, usual- 
ly from six to ten dollars, the owner ginning 
the cotton in the latter case. The negroes 
usually use the labor of their women and 
children in the fields, and a man takes more 
or less land according to the number of his 
family. If a renter takes fifty acres at eight 
dollars, his account in an average year would 
stand somewhat thus : Thirty acres in cot- 
ton would yield twenty -five bales, worth 
thirteen hundred dollars. Of this he would 
pay out four hundred dollars rent, aud, prob- 
ably, one hundred and fifty dollars for extra 
labor in picking, etc., and would have left 
seven hundred and fifty dollars cash, and 
tweiity acres of corn as food for his family 
and stock. 

Such results not only satisfy the negi'o, 
but they even tempt white men to come in 
from the less fertile uplands, aud on some 
plantations there are Swiss and Germans, 
who, as a rule, become prosperous, I am told. 

The planter keeps on the place a store at 
which renters may buy their supplies, aud 
where they get a moderate credit. He also 
keeps a cotton-gin aud a grist-mill, for the 
use of which he makes a charge ; and he 
takes care to get his year's rent out of the 
first of the crop. In practice, furthermore, 
the planter finds it necessary to ride daily 
through his fields to see that the renters are 
at work, and to aid them with his advice. 
Duriug the winter, he hires them to chop 
wood for his own use, and to split rails aud 
keep up the fences. 

All the plantations have a quantity of 
unused woodland, iu which stock roams at 
large, aud this is free to the renters. It is 
a wasteful and wretched way to keep stock. 



/ 



AKKANSAS IN MAECH, 1875, 



39 



and one result of it you see in the steers 
which are used to draw wood into Little 
Eock, some of which are not much bigger 
than a good -sized Newfoundland dog. It 
makes trouble, too, about hogs. The hog is 
in Arkansas what the umbrella is elsewhere 
— the prey of the first man who needs it. 
Pork is called " meat ; " and when your plant- 
er friend explains to you that he has to buy 
all his meat, he will add that " the negroes 
will steal hogs ; you can't keep a hog about 
the place." 

The cabins of the renters, white as well as 
black, are usually pretty cheerless affairs, and 
there are few signs of a desire for tasteful 
or even orderly surroundings. But in this 
respect the planter's own home siuToundings 
are often but little in advance of his ten- 
ants'. Here and there you find a man who 
keeps a kitchen - garden ; and most of the 
people have chickens ; a forehanded negro 
will own some cows ; and they all buy cof- 
fee, sugar, molasses, and wheaten flour, which 
last they prefer to corn-meal. A plantation 
store which I examined was i)retty thor- 
oughly supplied, not only with dry-goods and 
gTOceries, but with fiiruiture, saddles, cook- 
ing-stoves, and all kinds of kitchen and table- 
ware of the plainer sorts, of course. A pla- 
card announced " Scotch snxiflt';" and to my 
inquiry the store-keeper told me that many 
of the women, white as well as black, xise it 
in the way called " dipping." I was sorry to 
discover that at some of the plantation stores 
whisky__i^6old to the renters. 
— DrTone of the plantations I was told that 
negro renters are preferred, because they are 
easier to get on with, and less apt to grum- 
ble and find fault than native whites ; and I 
judge, from all I heard, that the negroes are 
quite as economical, and as apt to buy land 
out of their savings, as the poorer class of 
whites j ^:ll0 i'"^'>T|^p renters. / 

Cotton-picking, which, it used to be said, 
could never be satisfactorily done with free 
labor, because it requires the concentration 
of so much labor at a certain time, is, it 
seems, better done now than ever under the 
slave system.^^Iu the picking season women 
andcHiTdren gather upon the i)lantations 
from towns and villages, and from all the 
surrounding uplands ; and as they are well 
paid, and by the hundred-weight, the work 
is quickly and well done. " During slave 
times we never got through picking so early, 
or saved the whole crop in such good order 
as now," said a planter to me ; " sometimes 



the cotton was not all gathered before March, 
and now the fields are usually stripped clean 
before frost comes." 

Every neighborhood has a church and 
school for the colored people, and usually 
also a school for the white children ; but the 
school fugd having been mostly wasted and 
stolen, many of the schools are closed. On 
Sunday the women go to church in bright 
dresses, and this is a great occasion. The 
colored preachers are usually cotton farm- 
ers, renting land, and I imagine they also 
have some political influence among their 
people. Political meetings are held in the 
churches. 

To conclude. Wherever I met colored peo- 
ple, they seemed comfortable and at ease ; 
and I neither saw nor heard the least evi- 
dence that they are regarded by the whites 
otherwise than as an integral and important 
part of the population. They appear to me 
to have withstood, very creditably, the de- 
moralizing influences of political junketing, 
barbecues, and excitement incident to the 
earlier years of reconstruction. On the plan- 
tations white and colored renters seem to 
hold like relations to the owners of the land. 
Cotton-land is still so abundant that there 
is no difficulty in buying it in such quan- 
tities as laboring men, white or black, want. 
In Little Eock I saw negro policemen as 
frequently as white, and in the State-house 
and elsewhere in government offices I saw 
them employed. 

Arkansas is at ^leace. The condition of 
parties seems to make proscription for opin- 
ion's sake impossible, for neither party can 
afiord to sacrifice adherents. There is the 
best evidence that industry has revived all 
over the State, that the people of both par- 
ties strongly desire peace and order, and that 
the cessation of Federal interference has re- 
moved the only cause of disorder by throw- 
ing the politicians on their own responsibil- 
ity, and leaving the people to control their 
own local afi"airs, and to remedy abuses at 
the polls, which before they were unable to 
cure or remove by lawful means, and were 
therefore tempted to resort to the shot-gun 
and the revolver. 

"In my county," said an Arkansan to 
me, "the county olerk and collector of 
taxes were appointed by the governor. 
They were not citizens of the county, but 
strangers. They wasted the taxes ; issued 
scrip to a heavy amount, and stole that; 
gave us neither improvements nor good 



40 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



management; and we had no appeal, no 
way, at elections or by any other method, of 
ridding ourselves of them. Taxes went up 
to seven per cent, on a high valuation. What 
should we do ? One of these scoundrels was 
shot, and the other ran away. And then 
came a howl of political ostracism and per- 
secution of Union men. But now we can 
protect ourselves at the polls, and we will 
keep the peace." 



The public debt of Arkansas is very great, 
and its management is full of difficulties 
for the present. But the natural wealth of 
the State is great, too. It is now under the 
rule of honest men ; and the people, individ- 
ually, owe less, in proportion to their prop- 
erty, than ever before in the history of the 
State. Their prospects, therefore, are favor- 
able, and a good crop this year will, every 
body thinks, make them prosperous. 



LOUISIANA IX APRIL, 1875. 



The long-talked- of "compromise," or Ad- 
justment, determined on by the Congres- 
sional Committee, -was completed on Satur- 
day, April 10th, by the installment of a Con- 
servative in place of a Republican State 
senator. Its terms did not entirely please 
the leaders of either party. The Conserva- 
tive leaders conceived themselves to be get- 
ting less political strength than the election 
of 1874 actually gave them, and the Radi- 
cal leaders, or at least some of them, declare 
that it is for them a surrender of i)olitical 
power in the State. 

Meantime, however, a wing of the Con- 
servatives very strongly favored the com- 
promise, and was able to bring most of its 
side into it ; while a wing of the Radicals, 
among whose leaders were Governor Kellogg 
and Ex-Congressmau Sheldon, accepted the 
compromise, and General Sheridan's advice 
silenced Pinchback, Senator West, and other 
Radical opponents, who were at tirst deter- 
mined to defeat the measures of peace. 

Thus matters stood when the House for- 
mally accepted the Adjustment, and unseat- 
ed the Radical members whom the commit- 
tee of Congress declared to have been wrong- 
ly seated by the returning board. But 
when the resolution of acceptance was pro- 
posed, a number of Conservative members 
voted " No ;" among them Mr. Wiltz, whom 
some of the Conservatives desired to make 
Speaker. This attitude of Wiltz encouraged 
those in his own party who did not want 
him to bo Speaker, and these succeeded, 
with the help of a considerable Radical 
vote, in defeating Wiltz and electing Estil- 
lete as Speaker. 

This was the really important and deci- 
sive result of the Adjustment, for it declared 
which of the two branches of the Conserva- 
tive party should control its organization. 

The State of Louisiana had, according to 
the census of 1870, 87,076 white and 8G,913 
black males over twenty-one years of age. 



It has since been proved by undeniable evi- 
dence that the census understated consider- 
ably the number of whites. It was taken 
in the summer, when many white people 
always leave the State, and the census-tak- 
ers did not, it is asserted, thoroughly record 
that part of the white population which is 
scattered over the pine hills back of the bot- 
tom-lands, on which a large number of white 
farmers are settled. I suppose the truth to 
be that Louisiana has to-day at least ten 
thousand more white than black voters. 
The Conservatives claim at least fifteen 
thousand more. »>. 

Now, in the election of 1874 parties were i<;\ 
divided, unhappily, almost entirely on the 
color-line. Mr. Packard, who nnites in his 
person the two important, and I should 
think incongruous offices of United States 
marshal and chairman of the Republican 
State Central Committee, told me, in New 
Orleans, that only live thousand whites voted 
the Republican ticket in 1874, and that the 
same number of blacks voted with the Con- 
servatives. It is, I think, a fair statement 
that, with the exception of the office-hold- 
ers. State and Federal, and their relations, 
there were no white Republicans in the 
State in 1874, or, at the furthest, but an in- 
appreciable number. The reason for this 
condition of things I shall try to explain. 
It must suffice now to say generally that the 
inefficiency and corruption of the State gov- 
ernment in all its parts — leaving laAvless- 
uess unpunished, countenancing tho most 
monstrous and shameful frauds, and contin- 
ued thus for six disgraceful years, at last 
uuited all the whites in one party, whose 
aim was simply and only to oust the thieves. 
Opposed to them in 1874 stood those rulers 
with almost, but not quite, the whole negro 
population at their backs. 

The situation was one not different in kind 
from that in New York City in 1871, when all 
honest men. united against Tweed and Tarn- 



42 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



many Hull. The rank and file of the par- 
ty which calls itself Conservative consists 
in part of Democrats who are naturally 
opposed to Kepublican rule, but in part, 
also, of old Whigs, Know-uothiugs, and the 
mass of citizens not interested in politics. 
These entered the Conservative party only 
to save the State from further misgovern- 
meut and spoliation. It was and is, there- 
fore, au "honest men's" party, and was 
called " Conservative," and the name Dem- 
ocrat dropped, because there are iu Louisi- 
ana a large number of good citizens who 
are so strongly opposed to the Democratic 
name that they will not actively, if at all, 
work with a party bearing that title. Many 
of its most substantial citizens were op- 
posed to secession, and to-day think that 
act was "blundering Democratic statesman- 
ship," as one said to me the other day. A 
Northern man may very commonly hear men 
who have been active and foremost in the 
Conservative movement declare that, " as 
soon as we have driven off the Eadical thieves 
and robbers who have so long spoiled us, we 
shall quickly show these Democrats that they 
can not hold the State." 

There is little doubt that whenever Feder- 
al interference in the State definitely ceases, 
and honest men have been put into power, 
the " Conservative " party — the white man's 
I>arty — will incontinently split into two 
nearly equal lialves, and each will try, with 
the help of the negroes, to beat the other. 
13ut it is tolerably certain that, until the pres- 
ent so-called Republicans are driven from 
power, the white men will stick together, 
for they can not afford to do otherwise. 

The Republican politicians stigmatize one 
wing of the Conservatives as " last (Jitchers," 
and it was these wlio desired Wiltz to be 
Speaker, and thus the head of the party. 
Now, they are not " last ditchers," or imprac- 
ticable men at all ; but they are Democrats, 
and wish, as is but natural for them, to make 
(he State Democratic. To this end they 
would like to keep the present Conserva- 
tive party together permanently, and use its 
strength for the Democratic party. I can 
not see any thing wrong about this. It is 
their natural course to attempt it. 

But the other wing of the Conservatives, 
which, in the struggle over the speakership, 
was, curiously enough, led by Leonard — that 
editor of the Shreveport Times whose ex- 
treme and blood-thirsty utterances last year 
were so widely quoted as proving the dan- 



gerous condition of Louisiana — this other 
wing determined to beat Wiltz, and in doing 
so had the sympathy, I think I may safely 
say, of the greater part of the business com- 
munity of New Orleans. 

Leonard, who is a bold politician, did not 
hesitate to accept the help of the Kellogg 
wing of the Republicans ; and the Wiltz men, 
on their jiart, tried to secure the help of 
Piuchback. On Friday morning it was un- 
derstood that Kellogg, Sheldon, Judge Steele, 
and the better class of the Republicans had 
given assurances to the Estillete men that 
they would co-operate for thorough reforms 
with that wing of the Conservatives, while 
Piuchback, it was said, was ready to throw a 
considerable colored Republican vote (twen- 
ty-three was the x^recise number given) 
for Wiltz; and with this help it was then 
believed Wiltz would be chosen. At the 
last moment, however, Piuchback abandoned 
Wiltz, and thus he received but thirty-seven 
votes, iu a house of one hundred and eight 
members, in which his own party had fifty- 
eight men. 

As it is very common to charge corruption 
where jiarty-lines are thus broken, I will 
add my belief, founded upon pretty intimate 
knowledge of the negotiations on both sides, 
that there was nothing of the kind here. 
Mr. Wiltz is a person of a Mgh sense of hon- 
or, and his adherents made no promise for 
him or themselves to Piuchback, except that 
Wiltz, if elected Speaker, would, in appoint- 
ing officers of the house, give a fair share of 
the places to colored men. Piuchback prob- 
ably deserted AViltz at the instance of Gen- 
eral Sheridan, who is known to have con- 
versed with him on Friday morning in pret- 
ty energetic language. On the other side, 
Estillete's adherents insisted ouly on a sol- 
emu engagement from Kellogg that he would 
aid them in all reform measures. 

The disappointment of the Wiltz men was 
very great, and that of the corrupt Repub- 
licans was even greater, and with reason ; 
for, unless Governor Kellogg should be weak 
and wicked enough to falsify his i>ledges, 
and fling himself once more into the hands 
of the corrupt part of his party — which 
means, I do not hesitate to say, the very 
great majority of its white and black lead- 
ers — these are left out in the cold. Those 
Republican leaders, meantime, who sincere- 
ly desire honest government — and they are 
not very numerous — hope that they have 
split the white man's party in the State, and 



LOUISIANA IN APEIL, 1875. 



that the result of tlie Speaker's election will 
be a final breaking-down of the color-line. 

Meantime, so sore are the white people of 
the State over the too-long-continued mis- 
government, that they view every movement 
and every man with suspicion ; an^ only 
the most unswerving, bold, and determined 
course, the most rigorous punishment of cor- 
rupt men, could satisfy the State sufficiently 
to gain the new combination prolonged life. 

You can not travel far in Louisiana with- 
out discovering that the politicians who, iu 
the name of the Eepublican party, rule it, 
and have done so for the last seven years, 
iu all the departments of its government, 
State and local, are vehemently and unani- 
mously detested by the white people. I have 
been amazed to sec how all white men, and 
many blacks to my own knowledge — wheth- 
er rich or poor ; whether merchants, mechan- 
ics, or professional men ; whether Ameri- 
cans, French, Germans, Irish, or Italian by 
birth : absolutely all except the office-hold- 
ers and their relatives — unite in this feeling 
of detestation of their rulers. It expresses 
itself so vividly at the polls that, as I noticed 
before, only five thousand whites out of over 
ninety thousand supported the Republican 
ticket at the last election ; and it is a fact 
that most of these five thousand are office- 
holders, the greater part are strangers in the 
State, and very many of them may justly be 
called adventurers. It is so universal a sen- 
timent that I have found scarcely a colored 
man out of office, who did not complain to 
me that the Reiiublican whites are as faith- 
less to their duty as they believe the other 
side would bo. 

Now, this small band of white men have 
for more than six years monopolized all po- 
litical power and preferment iu the State. 
They have laid, collected, and spent (and 
largely misspent) all the taxes, local taxes 
as well as State ; they have not only made all 
the laws, but they have arbitrarily changed 
them, and have miserably failed to enforce 
any which were for the people's good ; they 
have openly and scandalously corrupted the 
colored men whom they have brought into 
political life ; they have used unjust laws to 
perpetuate and extend their own power; 
and they have practiced all the basest arts 
of ballot-stuffing, false registration, and re- 
peating, at election after election. 

In the last election, it was proved before 
a committee of Congress that the Republic- 
an leaders had, in the city of New Orleans 



alone, made no less than five thousand two 
hundred false registrations. A few days 
ago I went down the river to attend court, 
iu order to see the working of a negro jury. 
The court had to adjourn for lack of a jury ; 
and no panel had been drawn, because, the 
names being taken from the registration lists 
of the parish, thirty-six out of forty-eight 
were found to be fictitious — and this in a 
country parish. The Eepublican returning 
board was condemned as a transparent fraud 
by two Congressional committees, and has, 
so far as I know, no defender iu Louisiana or 
in the country. 

I know of one case in the last election 
where, the Conservative ticket being elect- 
ed, the records of the election were carried 
by the supervisor from the parish to New 
Orleans, and concealed in a house of prosti- 
tution, one of whose inmates was sent to 
drive a bargain with the Conservatives for 
their return. 

So common is corruption, and so unblush- 
ing still, that the grand jurj' of New Orleans, 
only the other day, began an iuvestigation 
to discover who had altered, after its pas- 
sage, an important appropriation bill, passed 
by the Hahn (Republican) Legislature ; and 
the discovery of so gross and daring a fraud 
scarcely excited attention iu New Orleans, 
where I have myself seen colored members 
of the Legislature — men who were slaves 
but ten years ago, and began life with noth- 
ing at that time — now driving magnificent 
horses, seated in stylish equipages, and wear- 
ing diamond breast-pins. 

Whatever we in the North may think of 
the white people of the South, we can not 
forget the fact that Louisiana has a long- 
established and wealthy community, with 
large and complicated business and social in- 
terests, and a great accumulated capital, in- 
vested not merely in lands, but also in ma- 
chinery and important public works. New 
Orleans is one of the largest commercial 
ports in the United States. It has a numer- 
ous body of intelligent and wealthy mer- 
chants, the equals of any of their class in 
New York, Philadelphia, or Boston. The 
sugar-planters of Louisiana are, in fact, man- 
ufacturers ; they have large sums invested 
iu machinery, and their business requires 
much technical skill ; and they are, as a 
class, the equals in intelligence and charac- 
ter of Northern manufacturers. 

Now, then, all these men, the cream of the 
population, with scarcely a single exception, 



44 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



are united in opposition to tho present rul- 
ers of Louisiana, whom they not only detest, 
but dread. It is not the cotton-planter only 
of the remote districts, therefore, or the 
country trader, who opposes the Eepnblican 
rule. Hovr, in spite of so united au ojiposi- 
tion, a handful of politicians, most of them 
strangers in the State, have maintained 
themselves in power I will now try to explain. 
The constitution of 1868, under which 
Louisiana was reconstructed, and which is 
Ktill in force, is in some respects a sufficient- 
ly harmless-looking instrument. For in- 
stance, it pretends to give the people the 
election of almost, but not quite, all their lo- 
cal or county offlcers ; it pretends to limit 
the powers of the Legislature and of the ex- 
ecutive; it even, like many other State con- 
stitutions, forces the people to elect the 
judges and the subordinate State officers. 

But while thus apparently popular, it 
gives to the governor the exclusive power 
to appoint and remove all the officers con- 
cerned with the registration of. voters, the 
conduct of elections, and the counting of 
votes in every parish of the State ; and also 
the appointment and removal of all tax-col- 
lectors — officers who have also an important 
part in the assessments. And, having thus 
given into the governor's control the purse 
and the voice of the people, by one or two 
inconspicuous clauses this instrument ena- 
bles an adroit and unscrupulous governor 
and Legislature to deprive the people of even 
those powers and remedies which are appar- 
ently secured to them, and without which 
free government becomes a farce. In ftict, 
this constitution, as it has been applied by 
legislatures and governors, and construed by 
State judges since 1868, provides all the ma- 
chinery needed for the party in power to 
perpetuate its rule forever, in spite of the 
will of the people. 

1st. The governor appoints and removes 
the registrars of election and their assist- 
ants all over the State, and tho decision of 
these officers is final and conclusive as to 
the right of a person to vote. The regis- 
trars appoint the local supervisors, or com- 
missioners, who conduct the elections. But, 
as New Orleans is largely Democratic, the 
mayor and sheriff of that city are prohibited, 
under severe penalties, from holding or in- 
terfering in " any election whatever," that 
work being given to the metropolitan po- 
lice, whose officers are appointed by the "-ov- 
ernor. 



2d. The governor appoints and removes 
the tax-collectors all over the State ; and in 
New Orleans he appoints also the assessors. 

3d. He appoints the officers of the metro- 
politan police, paid for by the city of New 
Orleans; and this body, so controlled by him, 
is constituted a metropolitan brigade, which 
he may send into any part of the State to 
make arrests ; and a steamer is provided for 
this purpose. 

4th. Pie appoints the Board of Public 
Works of the State. 

5th. He may, whenever he deems it neces- 
sary, appoint and commission, as an extraor- 
dinary force, a chief constable, and as many 
deputies as he thinks necessary in any par- 
ish of the State, and these have, ex officio, 
power to make summary arrests. The chief 
constable is paid four dollars a day. 

Gth. He is, of course, commander-in-chief 
of the State militia, and appoints and com- 
missions its officers. 

7th. The constitution empowers him to fill 
all vacancies in office throughout the State. 
Under this apparently harmless clause, he, 
in effect, controls even the lowest local of- 
fices in the remotest parts of the State, such 
as constables, justices of the peace, and par- 
ish surveyors. In a single number of the 
Loiiisianian, the official gazette of the State, 
I find the following examples of the exer- 
cise of this power : 

"appointments i!t the goveenob. 

"The following appointments were made by Gov- 
ernor Kellogg yesterday : 

"; Parish of OrUans.—K. W. Connog, assistant su- 
pervisor of registration of the First Ward. 

''Parish of A'atchitoches.—Jhnry Percy, parish sur- 
veyor, vice W. H. Boult ; R. E. Hammett, justice of 
the peace of the Third Ward ; P. L. Grappe, consta- 
ble ; F. Jennings, justice of the peace of the Fifth 
Ward; S.M. Cramps, constable; L. Van Schonbruck, 
justice of the peace of the Sixth Ward ; M. L. Bates, 
constable; James E. Turner, justice of the peace of 
the Seventh Ward; Will Cobb, constable; A. R. Dow- 
den, justice of the peace of the Eighth Ward ; J. C. 
Bush, constable ; J. B. Vienne, justice of the peace of 
the Ninth Ward. 

"Parish of East Baton Rojirjc—Charlca Q. Pages and 
Robert Morris, clerks to the supervisor of registra- 
tion. 

"Parish of CTai&or7K>._ Charles S. Blackburn, su- 
pervisor of registration ; L. M. M'Cormick and L. B. 
Blackburn, clerks. 

"Parish of St. Manj. —liichSLVi Brooks, constable of 
the Third Ward. 

"Parish of Sabitie.—'R. A. Forhis, justice of the 
peace of the Fourth Ward ; S. Whattey, justice of the 
peace of the Ninth Ward ; James Hardy, constable of 
the Fourth Ward ; O. Seuter, constable of the Ninth 
Ward. 

"Parish of Lafaijettc—Tin^h Wagner, justice of the 
peace of the Second Ward ; Joseph Ledoux, constable 
of the Second Ward, vice C. Doncet, who failed to qual- 
ify; Vincent Bertraud, justice of the peace of the First 



LOUISIANA IN APEIL, 1875. 



45 



Ward, vice Alfred Peck, who failed to qualify : Galbert 
Bienvenu, constable of the Third Ward ; Jules D. 
Boudreaux, constable of the Fourth Ward, vice H. 
Theall, who failed to qualify; Alexander Billond, in- 
spector of weights and measures. 

"Parish of Winn.— Sam Peace, justice of the peace ; 
John Patton, constable. 

"Dr. J. J. Finney was commissioned as a member 
of the Board of Health." 

A more thoroughly centralized govern- 
meut France did not have under either em- 
pire. Nor have these great powers been 
hesitatingly used. 

Officers have been multifilied to an ex- 
traordinary degree, and at every new crea- 
tion the governor had the appointment of a 
favorite. New parishes (counties) were form- 
ed by the division of old ones, and in every 
case the governor appointed all the officers. 
Judicial districts have been re-arranged and 
new ones formed, and the governor there- 
upon made his friends or allies judges. A 
trick became common by which officers 
elected refused to qualify, and thereupon 
the governor filled the artificial vacancies 
with men who could not have been elected. 
Finally, so careful have the leaders in this 
conspiracy been to maintain their influence 
and their creatures in the pettiest offices, 
that the members of the Legislature are 
usually members of the local school boards, 
and degrade the schools by making the 
teachers their j)olitical tools ; and I have 
been in some petty villages of fifteen hun- 
dred or two thousand inhabitants, which 
have not for four or five years been allowed 
to put in office the town officers they elect- 
ed ; but after each election the result was 
disallowed, and the vacancies thus created 
were filled by the governor. 

As au example of the way such matters 
were managed, Shreveport will answer, the 
better because it lies in a region where the 
whites have been accused of discontent with 
the Republican rule. Shreveport before re- 
construction had a simple and economical 
city government. The mayor received a 
moderate salary, the Common Council were 
unsalaried. In 1871 the Republican Legis- 
lature imposed upon the place a new char- 
ter, which put it in charge of a mayor and 
four administrators, all salaried, all provided 
with clerks, and with office contingents. 
Tlie governor was authorized to appoint 
these officers, and to fill all vacancies, un- 
til 1873, and they were authorized to issue 
bonds, and dispose of them " for the best in- 
terests of the city." 

They seem to have issued not only bonds. 



but scrip, and this fell to forty cents on the 
dollar at last. In the spring of 1874 the ad- 
ministrators proposed to issue bonds to the 
amount of one hundred thousand dollars, to 
improve the streets. A tax-payers' associ- 
ation had been formed, and, having defeat- 
ed this project, they otfered the mayor to 
undertake the same work which had been 
proposed, and do it to his satisfaction, if 
they were allowed to raise money on tax 
receipts from citizens. Permission being 
given, they did the whole work for thirty- 
six thousand dollars. The police were de- 
moi'alized by being paid in depreciated 
scrip; the tax-payers asked the mayor to 
discharge the police, and authorize an un- 
salaried citizens' patrol ; and this, too, was 
done, and the city became at once orderly. 
In the fall of 1874 the Republicans were 
beaten, a Conservative city government was 
cho.seu, and the scrip stands to-day at ninety. 
But this is not all. The new charter was 
passed in 1871. In 1873 the Legislature in- 
corporated the Shreveport Savings-bank and 
Trust Company, and gave it for fifty years 
the "sole and exclusive right" to erect 
works to supply the city with water and 
gas, and to run a ferry across the river. Now, 
at that very time Shreveport had already a 
well-established gas company ; a satisfactory 
ferry had long been in existence, and was a 
source of revenue to the city ; and for water- 
works there was no need. The company was 
to pay for all its privileges the petty sum 
of five hundred dollars a year. Now, then, 
among the incorporators named in the stat- 
ute which gives these "exclusive rights," I 
find C. C. Autoine, then and still lieutenant- 
governor ; William Harper, State senator ; S. 
A. Hamilton, tax-collector ; Frank T. Hatch, 
supervisor of registration ; M. A. Walsh, the 
appointed mayor, aiul George L. Smith, mem- 
ber of Congress. The story is completed 
when I add that the incorporators were not 
merely endowed with "exclusive rights," but 
also allowed to transfer these to other per- 
sons unimpaired. 

No ruler of a civilized community ever 
possessed greater powers than the governor 
of Louisiana under this constitution. It 
gives him actual and direct control of the 
whole of the election machinery, and of all 
the officers who handle the taxes, and, indi- 
rectly, be has had the appointment of almost 
all the local or parish officers of the State, 
as well as of the judiciary ; for when a judge 
or other officer elected by the people did not 



4G 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



serve the purposes of tlie corruptionists who 
controlled the State, if no other way to re- 
move him oftered, the Legislature was ready 
to create a new parish, or a new judicial dis- 
trict, or a new court, and thus enable its 
governor to put in a serviceable person. 
Here is au example : The constitutiou pro- 
vides that all district judges shall be elected 
by the people. New Orleans has a strong 
Conservative majority, and elected Conserv- 
ative judges; and, this being inconvenient to 
the rulers of the State, the Legislature of 
1871 created a new tribunal, called the Eighth 
District Court, and authorized the governor 
to appoint a judge to hold until the next 
election. But, in 1872, Mr. Elmoi-e, Conserv- 
ative, was elected to preside over this court. 
Thereupon the Legislature, as soon as it met, 
abolished both this and the Seventh District 
Court, to both which Conservative judges 
had been chosen, created the " Superior Dis- 
trict Court," authorized the governor to ap- 
point its judge, to hold until 1876, and vested 
in this court, so organized, exclusive juris- 
diction of all prerogative writs and the trial 
of all actions in which the title to any of- 
fice — State, parish, or municipal — was in- 
volved. Another act of the same Legisla- 
ture authorized the removal of cases where 
the ofiice of judge was contested in any part 
of the State to this Superior District Court 
of New Orleans. 

Again, the criminal jurisdiction in the par- 
ish of Orleans was formerly vested in the 
First District Court of that parish. In 1872, 
a Conservative, E. Abell, was elected jiulge 
of this court. Thereupon, in 1874, the Leg- 
islature deprived this court of almost all 
its important powers, and gave them to a 
new tribunal, called the " Superior Criminal 
Court;" and this was specially vested with 
exclusive jurisdiction in all cases of viola- 
tions of registration or election laws — and 
the governor was directed to appoint a 
judge to hold office until 187G. Now, remem- 
ber that the Radicals, or Eepublicans, who 
thus created this court, were proved before 
the Congressional committee to have made 
live thousand two hundred false re^istra- 
tions in New Orleans alone in 1874. Of 
course, having their own court, no one was 
punished for this. 

Again, by the charter of New Orleans, the 
police magistracy of the city was vested in 
certain " recorder's courts," whose officers 
were to be chosen by the "Administrators," 
or Common Council of the city. But the 



people elected in 1872 a Conservative board 
of administrators, and these chose Conserv- 
ative recorders. Thereupon, Act No. 95 of 
1873 was passed by the Legislature, which 
abolished the recorder's courts, created in 
their place metropolitan police-courts, and 
gave the governor authority to appoint the 
magistrates to preside in these courts. 

In other parts of the State the same trick 
has been repeatedly played, of legislating au 
obnoxious — that is to say, an honest — ^judge 
out of office by creating a new district, thus 
giving the governor the appointment of one 
judge, or even several new judges. Take 
one instance as an example : In the parish 
of Natchitoches, in 1S72, the grand jury in- 
dicted a parish officer for embezzlement. 
The parish judge, his personal friend, pro- 
tected him by neglecting to draw a jury. 

This was so common a trick that a law 
was finally passed which compelled the 
drawing of juries ; but this law is evaded, 
for no jury was drawn in the parish in which 
I write this at this term of the court — peo- 
ple tell me because the parish judge was 
afraid that if a grand jury met it would in- 
dict him for a gross misapxilication of trust 
funds. 

However, in Natchitoches the case went 
before the district judge and a negro jury, 
who gave a verdict for forty thousand dol- 
lars. Thereupon, at the next session, the 
Legislature broke up th« judicial district, 
and the governor appoiutcd to be jiulge of 
the new district, which included Natchi- 
toches parish, that parish judge who had 
corruptly protected the embezzler of public 
funds. The judge has since been driven 
out of the county — so he tells me ; reputa- 
ble citizens of the parish accuse him of be- 
ing concerned in embezzlius the school fund. 
The tax - collector, Boult, also driven from 
the parish, stands published as a defaulter 
in the last official State auditor's report, and 
acknowledged to me that he had, while tax- 
collector, been engaged in partnership with 
the Democratic member elect of Congress 
in buying up depreciated county warrants, 
which the county must redeem at jiar. 

Both Myers and Boult continued, when * 
I was in Louisiana, to hold office, and the 
condition of affiiirs in the parish may be 
gathered from the following details, which 
were confirmed to me by several citizens 
as existing in 1874: District Judge Myers 
was also treasurer of the school fund, and 
continues to be, though he has not been 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1375. 



47 



in the county since last July. Dr. Boult 
was tax-collector and member of the school 
board. His son, William Boult, was dep- 
uty-tax-collector and also deputy parish 
treasurer — two offices one of which ouglit to 
be a check on the other. A negro "police- 
jury " — a body which is the equivalent of 
our county supervisors — appointed an illit- 
. erate parish treasurer, who uuide this Boult 
his deputy. Another sou, David Boult, was 
parish judge. 

Nor is such a state of things uncommon. 
Before the Congressional committee appear- 
ed one Green, of Lincoln parish, and in an- 
swer to questions admitted that he was State 
senator, one of his sons tax-collector, another 
parish judge, and a third supervisor of regis- 
tration. Of the members of the present Leg- 
islature some are parish judges, some tax- 
collectors, one is assistant secretary of state, 
and a considerable number are charged by 
their constituents with sharing the emolu- 
ments of ofSce-holders whose appointments 
they have caused. 

The complaint is universal that the officers 
charged with the execution of the laws are 
not only inefficient, but corrupt ; that justice 
is not only denied, but openly sold; and in 
many cases the people have, after vain re- 
monstrances, taken the law into their own 
hands. 

" I have seen a district attorney, appoint- 
ed by the goveruor,£ell out a case for as little 
as ten dollars," declared a laboring man with 
whom I conversed, and the story was con- 
firmed to me by several citizens of the par- 
ish whom I asked. One of the prominent 
citizens of the parish of Rapides said to me, 
" We have had neither j)rotection nor justice 
for years. Matters became so bad that even 
the negroes got tired of bad government, and 
began to vote with us. We bad no intimi- 
dation at the last election, because it was 
not necessary. But we would have intimi- 
dated if it had been required, for avo could 
stand it no longer." 

" When we drove out the parish judge and 
other rascals, our taxes had got up to seven 
and nine- tenths per cent, on a high valua- 
tion ; and we concluded that we might as 
we^ stop there, and refuse to pay any more 
taxes," said the citizen of another parish. 
y" Nor are even the highest judicial otticers 
of the State untainted. In the North Loui- 
siana Railroad case, the Supreme Court of 
the United States, in its decision delivered 
last winter, said: 



" A property upon which had been expended nearly 
two million dollars, together witli a large stock-sub- 
scription, a large grant of lands, and considerable 
movable property, was bought for fifty thousand dol- 
lars by the very persons who defeated a sale for a much 
larger price, and the purchase money was retained by 
themselves. * ' * It is impossible to characterize this 
agreement as anything else than a gross fraud. Its 
obvions purpose was to remove competition at the 
sale. It was a flagrant breach of trust on the part of 
Home, and it was a fraud in Ludeling, with knowl- 
edge of the trust Home had undertaken, to persuade 
him to violate his instructions and sacrifice the inter- 
ests of his constituents, himself becoming a party to 
the violation. * * * And it is farther ordered, adjudtjed, 
and decreed that the sale made by John T. Ludelinr/ and 
his associaft^s, and the adjudicat^)n of the sheriff to 
them, together with the sheriff's deed to them, be de- 
clared to be fraudulent and void, and be set aside and 
canceled; and that a perpetual injunction issue com- 
manding them and all the defeudants to refj-ain from 
setting up or claimiug any right, title, or interest un- 
der said sale or under said deed, etc." 

Now, the .John T. Ludeling here declared 
guilty of fraud and breach of trust is the 
present chief-justice of the Supreme Court 
of Louisiana, appointed by a Rexniblican 
governor, and has been allowed by the Re- 
publican Legislature to retain his seat on 
the Suiireme Bench of the State in the face 
of these terrible words of the United States 
Supreme Coitrt. Public and political de- 
moralization could hardly go farther than 
this. 

Considering the character of the men with 
whom he acts, he was the right man in the 
right place ; and it was but part of a gener- 
al system when " Ludeling, Ch. J." decided, 
in 1870, in a case brought before his court, 
where it was attempted to upset an act of 
the Legislature on the ground that it had 
been procured by bribing the meiiil)ers, that 
" courts are not permitted to go behind an 
enrolled, duly authenticated and iiromulgat- 
ed public statute, to inquire into the motives 
which may have influenced the members of 
the General Assembly in enacting it. There- 
fore, evidence tending to establish bribery 
and corruption against the members of the 
General Assembly, which, it is alleged, pro- 
cured its passage, is not admissible." 

Federal, State, and parish officers have 
banded together to maintain themselves in 
power, and have used the ignorant fears of 
the negroes to help them. They called to 
their aid every man unscrupulous enough to 
take part with them. By alarming the blacks, 
by false registration, by arbitrary arrests 
and threats of arrests just before the elec- 
tions, by cheating in the returning board, 
by tampering with the courts, by debauch- 
ing the Legislature, by monopolizing offices, 



48 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



they have persistently prevented the hon- 
est people of the State from securing honest 
government. See here an example : 

A young fellow, a -white man, in the pres- 
ent Legislature, came to New Orleans from 
New York six years ago, so far an adventurer 
that his first occupation was to teach hoys 
to travel on the velocipede. He was present- 
ly engaged as a subordinate clerk in the 
Legislature, and when that body adjourned 
he went to Mississippi, where, the Legisla- 
ture of that State being still in session, he 
•was also employed as a clerk. In the fall he 
returned to New Orleans, where Warmoth, 
then governor, made him supervisor of reg- 
istration and election in an up-country par- 
ish where he had never been or lived. Aft- 
er the election he brought down the returns, 
which, by a coincidence not at all remark- 
able in this State, showed him to have re- 
ceived the unanimous Eepublicau vote, and 
to be elected to the Legislature from the 
parish where he had managed the registra- 
tion and election. Two years later (in 1872) 
he did not receive the Keiiublican nomina- 
tion ; but, noways discouraged, he announced 
himself as an independent candidate. On his 
way to the parish, however, he was intrust- 
ed by tlie State committee with the Eeiiub- 
lican tickets for the parish voters, and it was 
discovered that his name and that of a Dem- 
ocrat had been mysteriously placed on these 
tickets. Thereupon the negroes threatened 
to lynch him, and he returned to New Orleans 
until just before the election. The returns 
showed his defeat ; but the returniug board 
seated him, regarding him as too useful a 
man to leave out. I am told that he found 
it necessary to call in the help of the last 
returning board also to seat him in the j) res- 
ent Legislature. 

Such cases were so far from rare that 
the Legislature of 1869 was made up almost 
entirely of supervisors of registration and 
colored men. ^Yarmoth, the governor, se- 
lected as registrars a large number of men 
left in New Orleans after the war, and re-/ 
maiuing there without regular employment 
These were sent into the country parishes 
to register the voters ; and they so impressed 
the negroes with their official power and dig- 
nity, that a majority of them were returned 
to the Legislature from parishes which they 
had never seen until they went there to 
superintend the election. Many negroes 
were dragged in as a matter of bargain ; 
they had wit enough to demand a share of 



the honors. The Legislature so elected sat 
sixty days, at a cost to the State, for2'er diem, 
mileage, and contingents, of nine hundred 
thousand dollars. Each member is said to 
have received seven thousand dollars for the 
session ; and it is related that a siugle com- 
mittee of the House had eighty-seven clerks, 
who were paid ten dollars a day each. 

A government so highly centralized as that 
of Louisiana can scarcely fail to be costly 
and corrupt. But it ought at least to secure 
peace and order. 

I asked Governor Kellogg what was the 
real condition of the State in this respect, 
and he gave me a long and deplorable cata- 
logue of disorders : parishes which refuse to 
pay taxes; others where the judges have 
been driven away; others where murders 
have been committed, and so on. Other Rad- 
ical politicians spoke rather boastfully of 
these things, as a New York newsboy took 
pride in his sore toe. They related to me 
by the half- hour melancholy instances of 
crime and outrage — most of them dating 
back to 1866. 

What they did not tell me was some such 
story as this, which, nevertheless, is true : 
In the parish of Plaquemiue, which lies un- 
der the governor's nose, along the Lower 
Mississippi, below New Orleans, and which 
has had Republican rulers ever since 1868, 
thirty-three murders have been committed 
since 1868. Of these, thirty -one were of 
blacks by blacks, one of a white by a white ; 
and one of a white man, a Northern man, a 
Republican and an office-holder, the tax-col- 
lector of the parish. This man was shot by 
a colored man for seducing his sister and 
turning the young girl adrift with her baby. 
Of these thirty-three murderers, not one has 
been hanged. Those who were apprehended 
mostly broke out of jail, and only last fall 
the Republican deputy- sherifi', who acted 
as jailer, was indicted for permitting three 
murderers and a defaulting tax-collector to 
escape out of his custody. 

In other cases which I have on my note- 
books, men sentenced to imprisonment for 
life for murder have been pardoned. No one, 
not even the governor, pretends that murder 
and lawlessness have been punished, though 
in many instances white citizens have helped 
the authorities to arrest white murderers. I 
am satisfied that since the year 1870, except 
in the Coushatta and Colfax affairs, most of 
the nmrders in Louisiana have been non- 
political in their origin, and a great propor- 



/ 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



49 



tion of them hare been of negroes by ne- 
groes, maiuly on account of jealousy in their 
relations -with their -womeu. 

This does not lessen the degree of crimi- 
nality. Nor does it take away from the duty 
of the rulers, possessing, as these did, greater 
and more unlimited powers than the rulers 
of any civilized State in the world, to pun- 
ish these crimes. The governor of Louisiana 
appoints, in effect, almost the whole judicia- 
ry and constabulary of the State ; he has ex- 
press authority to use the metropolitan police 
as a standing army in any part of the State, 
and to appoint an extraordinary constabu- 
lary force in any parish ; his own judges su- 
perintend the selection of the juries, both 
grand and petit, and these are usually large- 
ly composed of colored men ; he has also the 
militia ; and, finally, he has the army of the 
United States ready to help him at his call. 
Is there any excuse for him if he permits 
lawlessness, murder, violence ? When he and 
those who rule with him speak of murder 
and violence uurepressed, do they not fa- 
tally condemn themselves as incapable and 
unfit to rule the State? A United States 
army officer, an extreme Eepublican, after 
giving me an account of some murders of 
which ho had heard, and which he believed 
to have happened, added, " But I must say 
that if the governor had been a /nan fit for 
his place, such things could not have hap- 
liened. Let me be governor, and I would 
quickly, Avith the great power he has, put a 
stop to such things." ^ 

It can not be truthfully said that the State 
of Louisiana has been peaceful ever since the 
war. In the early days, between 1865 and 
1868, there is no doubt that many barbarous 
and heart-rending murders and outrages 
were committed on the blacks. The white 
people, sore at their defeat in the war, urf- 
used to tolerate free negroes, fearful, to a de- 
gree that seems to a Northern man absurd, 
of combinations and conspiracies among the 
blacks to murder the whites and outrage 
their women, and rendered frantically furi- 
ous by the sight of negroes assembled in po- 
litical meetings, often at night, did, without 
doubt, commit atrocities of which I should 
be sorry to see any formal record made. 
Such crimes decreased from year to year, 
but I doubt if they entirely ceased until 
1870. They happened oftenest in counties — 
of which Louivsiana has a good many — where 
the negro population is as three, four, and in 
some cases even as nine, to one white; where 
4 



a few white families, isolated from each other, 
are surrounded by a dense negro population ; 
and where the dread of a rising to extermi- 
nate the whites is to this day the secret ter- 
ror of every white man, the dread which 
makes him frantic and desperate when even 
a rumor of conspiracy reaches his ears. I 
speak here that which I know. 

Now, into such regions came white men, 
strangers, often fanatics, often knaves, who 
gathered the freedmen together at barbe- 
cues and in camps, and told them of their 
" rights." I was shown yesterday a colored 
man who still keeps in his house the mule- 
halters he got in 1868, when a white man 
traveled through St. Mary's Parish telling 
the blacks that "they had made the laud 
what it was ; had cleared it and cultivated 
it ; and they ought to own it ; and the Gov- 
ernment, which had set them free, was go- 
ing to give them each forty acres of land 
and a mule." The blacks believed it. Many 
of them believe it still — just as there are 
planters down here foolish enough to be- 
lieve that the United States Government 
will pay them for their losses in the war. 

All this irritated the whites, and aroused \ 
the fear of negro insurrection; and it led, in 1 
tho remoter parts of the State, to many inex- 
cusable acts of barbarity. Then came the 
recoustruction, in 1868, and the negro was 
made, not only a voter, but an office-holder. 

It was, I believe, absolutely necessary to 
confer these rights upon him ; he would nev- 
er have been a free man without them. But 
it was a misfortune that demagogues and 
adventurers were his introducers to political 
life, and led him to regard not fitness, but 
color and numbers, as the reasonable claim 
to office. I have been opposed to slavery 
ever since I sat on my father's knee, and 
was taught by him that slavery was the 
greatest possible wrong; but when, in New 
Orleans last Wednesday, I for the first time 
saw negro legislators, I was unjileasantly 
startled — not because they were black, but 
because they were transparently ignorant 
and unfit. W^hat, then, must liave been the 
feelings of men who saw blacks, but lately 
their own slaves, and as ignorant as the 
mules they drove, preferred before them for 
office, set over them in authority, making 
laws for them — and making them very badly 
at that — openly plundering the State, bribed 
by rascally whites, and not merely enjoying, 
but, under the lead of white adventurers, 
shamefully abusing, place and power? 



50 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



Even iu 1874, in one of tbe nortliern par- 
ishes, the Republican candidates for sheriff 
and parish judge could not write. The ne- 
groes on many police-juries (supervisors of 
counties) are totally illiterate ; yet they have 
complete power over the parish taxes, roads, 
bridges, and all county matters. Negro ju- 
ries are called to sit upon intricate cases 
of commercial law and other matters which 
even intelliccent men find it difficult to un- 
derstaud ; and the black man himself has, 
it would seem, an instinctive appreciation of 
the absurdity of this, for it is notorious that a 
negro criminal always asks his counsel to get 
a white jury, if possible, to try him. Things 
which are commonplace here are unheard of 
with us. It was a matter of complaint to me 
the other day that in a certain county not a 
single colored man had been drawn on the 
grand jury this year. My instant and thought- 
less reply was that I had never known a negro 
to be drawn on the grand jury in the county 
in which I live. But the cases are widely dif- 
ferent; and it is absolutely necessary that 
the negro in the South shall take some share 
of the responsibilities of citizenship. 

But you can not quiet unreasonable fears 
or change wrong habits by act of Congress. 
I asked a citizen of a northern parish, a 
frank and intelligent man,whether they had 
schools for the colored children. He reiilied, 
" Of course, as many as for the whites ;" and 
added, "At first all our people were bitterly 
opposed to negro schools ; when, after some 
time, we had come in to that, then we would 
not for a while allow white men to teach in 
them. But now we are all agreed that it is 
just as well not to interfere; and one of my 
own neighbors, a weakly man, is teacher in 
a colored school, and nobody thinks the less 
of him for it." 

A prominent citizen of New Orleans said 
to me, " When, in 1868, the blacks were for 
the first time to vote, I was a candidate for 
office ; and I heard, just before the election, 
that John, a man I had raised, who was my 
personal servant, and who, since his freedom, 
had lived with his family in a house of my 
own rent free, was going to vote agaiust me. 
/ Now, I love the boy like a brother, but I 
called him to me and asked the question, 
and I was deeply irritated. He replied that 
if I was on the Republican ticket he would 
gladly vote for me ; but if not, he would cer- 
tainly vote against me. I told him that if 
he did, he must leave the house in which he 
lived, and must never show me his face again. 



The next day was election-day. I watched 
the poll, which was near my house. I saw 
John come to vote ; he did not see me, but 
he pulled out his ticket, unfolded it, held it 
up over his head, and said in a loud voice, 
' I'm votin de Republican ticket.' I drove 
him out of his house, took away all his em- 
ployment, and ordered that he should not be 
admitted to my house. I was very sore and 
angry toward him. My pride was hurt. It 
lasted several months, and I missed John. 
One day, on the anniversary of the death of 
one of my children, he sent me a bouquet of 
flowers ; and I did not refuse the peace-offer- 
ing. He lives with me now, and will till he 
dies ; but since then I have never tried to 
control a black man's vote. I have learned 
better. Nowadays they come to me to ask 
how I would like them to vote ; and as those 
I employ necessarily lose a day if they go to 
the polls, I noticed that in 1874 many did not 
vote at all." 

How clearly such instances show that the 
freedman would never have been a free man 
without political rights ; but, also, that the 
adjustment of his new relations needed time 
as well as law to comjilete it! 

One thing more was very much needed, 
and that was a rigorous enforcement of the 
laws. Unfortunately the reconstructors of 
Louisiana have utterly failed in this. It 
was not only murder and personal outrage 
they should have punished and repressed, 
but malversation in office, public robbery, 
bribery, fraud. When the United States Su- 
preme Court, iu a solemn and public decis- 
ion, dencunces as an inexcusable fraud and 
breach of trust the act of a man who is now 
Chief-justice of the Supreme Court of Loui- 
siana, and when neither the Legislature nor 
the governor takes measures, after that de- 
cree, to purify the highest judicial court in 
the State, that is only a straw which shows 
the general drift of political demoralization. 
All sense of honor, of honesty, of propriety 
and self-restraiut, seems to me to liave been 
lost by these men who have so long misruled 
the State. 

That I am not speaking extravagantly or 
in mere idle denunciation, let this recent in- 
stance show you. The Republican (or Halin) 
Legislature, that which, after the dispersion 
of the W^iltz Assembly in January, 1875, 
was recognized by the Federal Government, 
among other acts passed a new cliarter for 
the city of New Orleans — an instrument cal- 
culated, I am told, to facilitate still great- 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



51 



er robbery and misgovernment of the city. 
Governor Kellogg did not sign the bill ; but 
neither did he veto it. The Assembly ad- 
journed while it was still properly in his 
hands, and under the constitution he must 
return it signed or vetoed on the first day of 
the next meeting. The merchants and prop- 
erty-owners were alarmed at the mischief 
which would be wrought if this bill became 
a law. They petitioned against it, and the 
governor quietly gave them to understand 
that if they would unite to prevent the elec- 
tion of Wiltz as Speaker, he would veto the 
bill. Now, I do not believe Wiltz to have 
been the best man for Speaker, but that does 
not excuse a governor for trading upon the 
fears of citizens. 

More than this, an honorable Republican, 
a man respected by the other side, told me, 
with indignation, that a number of Radical 
members of the Legislature had made it a 
condition of their supporting the Adjust- 
ment, that an injunction issued by a State 
court stopping the proceedings of a corrupt 
board of audit should be dissolved ; and it 
was so dissolved the day before the Legisla- 
ture met. 

As for minor robberies, take this as an ex- 
ample : The parish of Plaquemine lies on the 
Mississippi, bolow New Orleans. It contains 
a large number of sugar- plantations; and, 
besides these, its people (mostly French Cre- 
oles and colored men) cultivate rice and the 
orange. It is a charming, quaint country, 
and the small fanners, a\ ho mostly speak 
French better than English, are a quiet and 
simple-hearted people. In the year 1868, 
when reconstruction began, this parish had 
no debt, and six thousand dollars in cash in 
its treasury, which sum was turned over to 
the reconstructors. Among these was one 
who owned a small sugar-plantation in the 
parish, into which ho had come as an offi- 
cer during the war ; he was elected to the 
State S(!nate, and, by a curious coincidence, 
the Legislature, of which he was a member, 
passed a law removing the parish seat from 
Point h la Haclie, where it had been time 
out of mind, to a spot at Jesuits' Bend, far- 
ther up the river, and on this man's planta- 
tion. Of course, to get the county town 
removed to one's farm is not a bad specu- 
lation. Lawyers and many other people 
must live near the Court-house, and they 
make a market for town lots. The records 
of the county were, in fact, removed ; but 
the people made such a clamor that, after a 



struggle of a year, the project was given 
up. Presently this man became a bank- 
rupt ; but he is all right, for the governor 
has appointed him tax-collector of the par- 
ish, a place said to be worth ten thousand 
dollars a year. 

A colored man from the island of Nassau 
also came in 1868. A white man, formerly 
in General Neal Dow'» corps, which cam- 
paigned in this region, was another poli- 
tician. He was made supervisor (member 
of the police-jury they call it here), and, 
soon after the reorganization, the parish 
authorities began to issue scrip in sucb 
abundance that in two or three years it fell 
to fifteen cents on the dollar. But it was 
always receivable at par for parish taxes. 
In 1872 the colored man above mentioned 
was State senator; another colored man 
was member of the Assembly, and another 
was sheritf. The Legislature passed a law 
authorizing these three, and two white citi- 
zens, to ascertain and report the outstand- 
ing debt of the parish, and to fund it. The 
three colored men are accused of issuing: 
bonds illegally, and without consent of the-^ 
whites, to the amount of $30,000 in exchange 
for scrip, much of which had been bought 
up by them and their friends at a great dis- 
count. On an investigation by citizens it 
was found that the seal of the court, which 
had to be affixed to these bonds by the par- 
ish clerk to make them valid, had not been 
affixed by him ; but had been surreptitious- 
ly obtained and used by the three bond-is- 
suers. The parish debt is now $93,000, and 
Judge Pardee, a Republican, but praised by 
every body here as an honest and incorrupt- 
ible man, has granted an injunction prohib- 
iting the conversion of the remaining $57,000 
of scrip into bonds. Finally, the last grand 
jury of the jiarish, composed of twelve col- 
ored men and four whites, indicted Butler 
for bribery and embezzling the school fund ; 
Mahoney, for stealing the school fund; and 
Prescott, the parish judge, a white man, 
stranger in the parish, for subornation of 
perjury. 

Now, then, the financial statement it 
Plaquemine parish stands thus : In 1868, no 
debt, and $6000 in the treasury ; in 1875, 
a debt of $93,000. Meantime, iu every year 
since 1868, taxes to the amount of from 
$20,000 to $25,000 have been levied and col- 
lected. And for all this large sum, amount- 
ing, taxes and debt, to over $200,000 in six 
years, the parish has received neither roads, 



52 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



nor schools, nor levee repairs, nor public 
buildings. Before the war the taxes never 
exceeded $7000 a year. 

lu the report of the State Superintendent 
of Public Instruction, tbo management of 
school affairs in Plaquemine parish is thus 
mentioned: 

"A controlling portion of the school board could not 
resist the temptation to use their positiou as a means 
of political advancement, and a large portion of the 
school fuuds was expended for private and partisan 
purposes. Furnished with ample fuuds from the State 
treasury, which were liberally increased by local tax- 
ation, the money has been squandered or expended 
without even ordinary judgment. * * * Access to the 
books and papers pertaining to the office of the treas- 
urer was denied me from time to time upon frivolous 
pretexts, and, finally, peremptorily and insultingly 
refused. Obstacles of every possible character were 
thrown in my way to prevent me from obtaining re- 
liable information, the treasurer even attempting my 
imprisonment on the charge of larceny. * * * The re- 
sult of a somewhat protracted investigation can be 
summed up in a few words. The accounts, as they 
appear in the remarkable document before alluded to, 
are, in many cases, falsified by being ' raised ;' ficti- 
tious claims are allowed and paid to fictitious person- 
ages ; unworthy, incomiKtent, and dissipated teach- 
ers have, in some instances, beeu employed to per- 
form political services of questionable houesty, and 
the public money expended to the last cent, leaving a 
heavy load of debt. * * * Knowing as I do the details 
of this most disgraceful matter, I charge the then 
treasurer of the board with embezzlement, aided and 
abetted by the then president and the parish judge, 
who also was a member of the board, and am pre- 
pared to establish this before any competent tribunal." 

The treasurer of the school hoard here de- 
nounced was also at the same time State 
Senator and member of the police-jury (su- 
pervisor). Mahoney, who was president of 
the school board, was at the same time mem- 
ber of the Assembly and police-juror. 

I find that in a great many parishes the 
members of the Legislature are members 
and officers of the school board. As the lat- 
ter office is not salaried, I was dull enough 
not to see the object of the Senators and 
Kepresentatives iu holding it, uutil an in- 
telligent colored man, a Eepublican and an 
office-holder, explained to me that in this 
way the pttblic schools are made political 
engines throughout the State. The Sena- 
tors or Representatives, being also officers of 
the school boards, appoint the school-teach- 
ers, and select men who are their own polit- 
ical adherents, and who, living among the 
colored people, help to keep their jiatrous in 
office. 

" In this parish," said the man to me, "we 
have many more colored schools than white ; 
but it is a fiict that most of the teachers are 
ignorant men or lazy, or, sometimes, drunk- 
ards. They are appointed by our Senator 



and Representatives, and their work is not 
to teach school, but to talk up the man who 
appoints them. If a teacher were the smart- 
est man in the township, and he went against 
the man who appointed him, he would be 
turned out; but this is not all. Over here 
there is a colored school, and another one 
close to it. There is no need for two so near 
together ; but neither of them is worth any 
thing ; for they were both set up for politics, 
and the teachers are only politicians, and the 
schools are hardly ever open." 

The colored man who told me this is a 
Republican and an office-holder. I shall not 
mention the name of the parish in which he 
lives, because I do not wish to get him into 
trouble ; but his testimony was confirmed to 
me by many other men of both colors. 

The school report to which I have referred 
gives a melancholy picture of the Louisiana 
school system. Of 272,334 children between 
six and twenty- one, only 57,433 were en- 
rolled in the public schools ; and as my eye 
runs over the pages I find that iu one parish 
the treasurer of the school board has used 
the fuuds for his private purposes, and paid 
the teachers in scrip to the amount of three 
thousand dollars. In another thirty thou- 
sand dollars were spent, and the schools were 
open less than a year — this in a country par- 
ish. In two parishes the school treasurers 
"had absconded with quite a large amount 
of money belonging to the school fund." In 
another " the money appropriated to estab- 
lish schools was invested in jirivate business 
and speculation." In yet another "all the 
forms of law which should govern school 
affairs have been totally ignored and disre- 
garded." In the parish of St. Martin, the 
treasurer of the school fund was discovered 
to be a defaulter to the amount of three 
thousand seven hundred dollars. In St. James 
the school board had prudently burned their 
records when they left the office, and J. W. 
Hunsakcr, president of the board, after giv- 
ing bail of five thousand dollars to answer 
to the charge of fraud, left the State. 

Do you wonder, in the face of such things 
as these, that, according to the admission of 
Iklarshal Packard himself, only five thousand 
white men voted the Republican ticket iu 
1874 ? That is to say, the office-holders and 
their relatives. Is it matter for surprise, 
that but for the fear of the Federal power, 
the people would sweep away this State 
government in an hour — that, in fact, these 
rulers would disapiiear of themselves if they 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



53 



did not know that they liave the Federal 
government behind them? Do you wonder 
that enterprise languishes, and property is 
valueless, when men see a fair election de- 
feated by a fraudulent returning board, and 
the chief officer of that board, the engineer 
of the fraud, which was denounced as such 
by two committees of Congress, receiving 
directly afterward a Federal office ? 

It is not contempt which the people of 
Louisiana feel for their rulers, but fear. The 
man who takes part in the State govern- 
ment, even if he should be honest himself, 
gives his influence to public plunderers, and 
he must expect property-owners to be shy 
of him. Did honest men associate with the 
Tammany thieves in New York ? Or, if they 
did, were they not, in the public opinion, 
stained by the contact ? 

" Do you see that man ?" said a citizen irt 
an interior parish to me : " he is our parish 
judge ; he is as ignorant of law as a horse. 
During the last election I heard him openly, 
and to his face, charged with theft. Not only 
that, but at a public jiolitical meeting where 
he was speaking, in his jn'esence he was ac- 
cused of taking a bribe of ten dollars while 
be was prosecuting attorney, and the man 
who accused him was the man who paid him 
the money. In spite of this, the colored peo- 
ple were persuaded to elect him judge. Every 
decent colored man in the parish will tell 
you that it was an unfit nomination ; but he 
got on the ticket and they elected him. The 
whole bar of the parish firmly believes that 
he sells justice. He says he is ostracized ; but 
can you expect me to invite him to my house ? 
He could not to-day get invited to the house 
of any respectable colored man iu the parish." 

"Can you expect us to like people under 
whose rule such frauds go on for years, and 
are unpunished ?" asked another ; " who al- 
low the fountains of justice to be corrupted, 
who never punish crime, and are too corrupt 
to check corruption in their subordinates; 
who degrade the very schools to serve their 
partisan purposes; appoint rogues to collect 
the taxes; and frame a returning board to 
cheat us by a clumsy and glaring fraud, when 
we try at the elections to iirocure better 
government?" 

A friend writes me from the North this 
question, "Are white and bhick Union men 
safe in life, liberty, and property in Loui- 
siana? That is the question which we of 
the North want to have honestly and seri- 
ously answered." 



I answer: first, the population of Loui- 
siana is divided politically into Eepublicans, 
called here Radicals ; and Democrats, called 
here Conservatives. They are all Union 
men. It is absurd and wicked to keep up 
the old war animosity by giving to the 
Southern Eepublicans the special title, " Un- 
ion men." 

The Republican party in Louisiana con- 
tains a great many men who were bitter Se- 
cessionists, not only during, but after, the 
war. One of the most conspicuous Repub- 
licans who came before the Congressional 
committee with complaints, and who was 
proved there and then by documentary evi- 
dence to be a rogue, was a Breckenridge 
Democrat before the war. Another, Green, 
who admitted that he and his sons held 
pretty much all the offices iu Lincoln par- 
ish, made a speech iu the Legislature after 
the war advocating payment for slaves. I 
could mention dozens of such cases. 

On the other hand, in my limited acquaint- 
ance in the- State, I know at least fifteen 
Northern men who were strenuous Repub- 
licans in the North, most of whom still open- 
ly act with the National Republican party 
iu Federal elections, but who vote and use 
all their influence for the Democratic or 
Conservative party iu State and parish af- 
fairs. There are hundreds of such men iu 
the State. Even the Republicans themselves 
are not so absurd as to arrogate to them- 
selves the title of " Union men." They 
would be laughed at. 

What my correspondent, and no doubt 
many other Northern men, want to know is, 
whether Northern men and negroes are safe, 
and can get security and justice in Louisi- 
ana; and to this I reply, unhesitatingly 
" Yes." 

It is perfectly true, as I have said else- 
where, that between 18G5 and 1868 there was 
a good deal of savage and brutal wrong in- 
flicted on blacks; and in the same period, 
and probably for a year or two later, North- 
ern men who came here to take possession 
of the State politically, and who at once be- 
gan a prodigious system of public plunder, 
were not always safe from the anger and re- 
sentment of the native whites. But several 
of the most prominent Republican politi- 
cians of New Orleans have told me positive- 
ly that the State was peaceable and quiet 
from 18G8 to 1872, and that since then the 
whites had been dissatisfied mainly because 
they believed sincerely that Kellogg was not 



54 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875, 



faii'ly elected governor, and that his rule •was 
that of a usurper. If Geueral Sheridan ever 
turns in his famous list of 2500 murders, aud 
if he puts dates to them, it vrill be found 
that the political murders happened before 
1868, with the exception of the Coushatta 
and Colfax affairs. The corrupt judge -who 
claims to have been driven out of Natchi- 
toches Parish assured me that that parish 
was one of the most quiet in the State until 
1874, -when he and a swindling tax-collector 
were driven out. 

That parish has become so notorious as 
the most unruly in the State, that I have 
taken some pains to ascertain the facts ; be- 
cause there, if auywhere, persecution of 
Northern men and negroes would be found. 
Now, then, first, an ofiicial report, properly 
authenticated, of the murders committed in 
this parish from 1868 to 1875 lies before me. 
They number 41, and of these there were 
whites murdered by whites, 13 ; colored mur- 
dered by colored, 13 ; whites by colored, 4 ; 
colored by whites, 3 ; whites by an unknown 
person, 3 ; colored by unknown, 1 ,• colored 
by officers of justice in serving process, 3; 
Indian by a white man, 1. Somebody may 
object that this record is not correct, but to 
that the reply is that the parish has been al- 
most continually since 1868 under Republic- 
an officers, and that the coroner is reputed 
here, as elsewhere, to be an officer very zeal- 
ous in the collection of fees. It is not cred- 
itable to the Republican rulers that for these 
41 homicides not one man has been hanged, 
and only one has been punished in any way. 
I should add that there is no evidence that 
any of these murders arose out of j)olitical 
causes. 

Consider that the parish had for years a 
corrupt judge and a thieving tax-collector — 
who managed to get all his sons into offices 
— and a police -jury (county supervisors) 
made up mainly of illiterate negroes. Gov- 
ernor Kellogg, for iustauce, in 1874 appointed 
as police-jurors three colored men, who could 
neither read nor write, one white man of an 
infamous character, whom even his fellow- 
Eepublicans publicly protested against, aud 
one decent white man. Under such rulers, 
the parish tax, which amounted to $13,475, 
with a valuation of $8,000,000 in 1860, rose 
to $46,894 on a valuation of but $2,000,000 
in 1869 ; it rose to $54,902 in 1870 ; and in 
1873 to $82,207. This was the parish tax 
alone, exclusive of the State tax. 

The supervisors allowed themselves one 



year fifty cents a mile mileage for every time 
they met. They paid out $1500 for a bridge 
which should have been built for $300, and 
gave the contractor a privilege to levy toll 
upon it for his own use when it was built. 
The parish judge acknowledged before the 
Congressional committee that he had for 
two years retained $7500 of parish money in 
his possession, in violation of an order of a 
district court to return it to the treasury; 
he refused repeatedly to draw juries, in or- 
der to shield his confederates ; and yet this 
person was appointed by Governor Kellogg 
district judge, a higher office. 

The people formed a tax-payers' associa- 
tion, and warned the judge and one of his 
confederates, the tax-collector, to leave the 
parish. The sons of the latter to-day hold 
offices in the parish, and none of them have 
been killed. The two men walk about free- 
ly in New Orleans, and are not molested ; 
but they tell fearful stories of intimidation 
and danger to their lives, and call them- 
selves " Union men. " 

The Tax-payers' Association was composed 
of Republicans as well as Democrats, aud 
had among its members 200 negroes. Myers 
calls it a white league, of course, and talks 
about intimidation of Republican voters ; 
but the official returns of the registration 
and election show these figures : The parish 
had, by the census of 1870, 7312 whites and 
10,929 blacks. Of these, one in five and a 
half blacks registered as a voter, and only 
one in seven and a half of the whites, in 
1874, the year of the disturbance. Of the 
3665 who registered, 3131 actually voted, and 
the Republicans carried the parish by 315 
majority. It was shown that many negroes 
voted with the Conservatives, and many oth- 
ers staid at home because they were disgust- 
ed with the theft of the school fund. 

I have taken Natchitoches as an example, 
because it has an especially evil reputation. 
Contrast with this a i^arish in which the 
Republicans have given the people an hon- 
est and economical government, and where 
there has been no disturbance. There are 
but four or five honestly governed parishes 
in the State. I happen to be well informed 
about one of these, Tensas, like Natchitoches, 
a cotton-planting county, and with a large 
preponderance of negroes. There has never, 
since 1868, been any disturbance iu Tensas, 
nor any pretense of intimidation. Here is 
its story since 1868 : The Republicans who 
came into it from the North happened to be 



LOUISIANA IN APKIL, 1875. 



55 



honest and sensible men. Their leader was 
Judge Steele, later assistant attorney-general 
of the State, an able man. They persuaded 
some of the most substantial of the old resi- 
dents to take parish ofEces. They took care 
to put always three prominent whites and 
two colored men on the police-jury. The par- 
ish judge had been a Confederate officer, and 
is a capable man, and a property-holder in 
the i^arish. They have always persuaded the 
negroes to elect such men to the local offices. 
Tensas had, in 1870, 1400 whites and 11,018 
blacks. With economical management, they 
have extinguished since 1866 a debt of $190,- 
000, contracted for levees before the war, pay- 
ing off 8130,000 of it. The rest was proved 
fraudulent in the courts. The parish has 
good roads, bridges, thirty schools, four gra- 
ded schools — two for each color ; it has mon- 
ey iu the treasurj^ ; its assessment is very 
low ; the courts are respected, the laws are 
enforced, peace obtains ; even stock-stealing 
has been put down. Meantime, the North- 
ern men have not ceased to be Kepublicans, 
nor have they given up their share of the 
offices. The State Senator and Representa- 
tive and some of the local officers are North- 
era men and Republicans. The negroes are 
satisfied; and when once some drunken ruf- 
fians from a neighboring county threatened 
to come iu and attack a Northern man, the 
largest meeting of whites ever assembled 
iu the county promptly gathered, and sent 
word to the rowdies that they would be 
shot down if they showed their faces iu the 
parish. 

Surely the story of these two parishes 
tells the reason why discontent and some- 
times disorder are found in parts of Lou- 
isiana. "It is not the Radicals, but the 
thieves, that we hate and oppose," said more 
than one Conservative to me. And I believe 
this to be the truth. I have not time to 
wander all over the State ; but I have exam- 
ined every case where I have heard of com- 
plaints of especial hostility to Republicans, 
and in every case I have found that there 
had been gross and long-continued niisgov- 
ernment, extravagance, denial of justice, 
and tolerance of disorder by the courts. 

I was told, for instance, that Madison Par- 
ish was " not a pleasant jdace for a Repub- 
lican." Very well. I find that in four years 
— from 1868 to 1872 — the Republican recon- 
structors ran up a debt in this parish of over 
$142,000. It had, iu 1870, by the census, 
only 936 white persons. It registered in 



1874 only 255 white voters and 2135 blacks. 
The few whites were, of course, the owners 
of almost all the property. Such monstrous 
mismanagement, borne by so few tax-payers, 
might very well create ill-feeling and strife ; 
but the parish gave, in 1874, 1614 Republic- 
an majority, and the vote ran but 55 short 
of the registration. Intimidation is, of 
course, out of the question. 

In the North we have heard so much 
about murders that I was very glad to get 
hold here of some parish statistics on this 
subject. The State government, which has 
almost entirely neglected to punish murder- 
ers — being too busily engaged in stealing — 
has, of course, no such official returns of 
crime as it ought to possess. I have been 
able to obtain returns, chiefly made by . 
county clerks and coroners, from only 13 ' 
parishes, not counting Plaquemine, which I ' 
have before given. From 1868 to 1875 there 
have been in these 13 parishes 313 murders. 
Of these, 93 were of whites by whites, 143 
were of colored by colored, 28 were of whites 
by colored, 32 colored by whites, 3 colored 
by officers of justice, 5 colored by persons 
unknown, 7 whites by persons unknown, 5 
whites by mobs, and 5 colored by mobs. 

The State has 57 parishes. Most of the 
13 of which I have given returns have a 
population nearly equally divided between 
white and black, and I suspect the figures 
give more than an average number of mur- 
ders of whites by whites, and less than the 
average of murders of blacks by blacks. 
Plaqtiemine, for instance, not counted in the 
above list, registered, in 1874, 510 white and 
2160 black voters, and there I found that 
there had been, since 1868, 33 murders, of 
which 31 were of blacks by blacks. There 
is srood evidence for the statement that the 
large majority of murders in the State in 
the last six years were of blacks by blacks, 
instigated by whisky and jealousy. The 
negroes drink less whisky this year than 
two or three years ago, when they were get- 
ting much higher wages; but their demand 
for it is so strong that I hud the planters 
generally sell it to them in the little planta- 
tion-stores, having discovered that if they 
did not, their hands would be running off 
elsewhere to get it, or some negro would 
peddle it in the cabins. The plantation ne- 
groes commonly carry a razor as a concealed 
weapon, and, absurd as this seems as a weap- 
on of attack, they inflict serious and often 
; fatal wounds with it. The razor seems to 



56 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



be their favorite weapon elsewhere also, for 
I fouud it so iu Delaware. They take to it 
probably because it is the cheapest tool with 
a keeu edge. 

It is not only a fact that crime has not 
been punished iu the State under the Repub- 
lican rule — neither crime against the person 
nor agaiust property ; but there is a great 
complaint that the j)ardouing jiower has 
been abused. I have found but one return 
on the subject, which shows certainly a lib- 
eral use of this jirerogative. From January 
1, 1873, to March 5, 1874, Governor Kellogg 
pardoned thirteen murderers (almost one a 
month) besides six men convicted of man- 
slaughter. The whole number of pardons 
duriug this period was eighty - foui', and 
among the offenses thus coudoued are poi- 
soniug, rape, shootiug into a dwelliug, burg- 
lary, assault with intent to kill, perjury, 
and bribiug witnesses. Now, when society 
is said by Governor Kellogg to be iu a dis- 
ordered state, and when he himself acknowl- 
edges, as ho did to me, that crime is not gen- 
erally punished, surely it is a serious error 
to pardon with so free a hand persons con- 
victed of such grave and daugerous crimes 
as I have mentioned. It can not fail to in- 
crease disorder. Unhappily, it can not bring 
the courts into greater contempt, than their 
general corruption and inefficiency all over 
the State, and from the lowest to the high- 
est, have already brought upon them. 

To return to the question of my Northern 
friend: Louisiana is at peace. The people 
universally accept the Union — nothiug is 
more certain than this. Also, there is no 
disposition to re -enslave the negro. The 
planters have discovered that free labor is 
far more economical than slave. Every- 
where planters have been ready to demon- 
strate to me the i)roiitableness of free labor, 
and to acknowledge that all their fears of 
disorganization had proved groundless. 

The bitterest Democrat I have met in the 
State said to me, "We are fortunate in one 
thing which I little expected at the close of 
the war : we have the best laboring force in 
the world." Ho went on to tell me that be- 
fore the war he had often to pay, for extra 
bauds which he hired, from one hundred and 
Bixty to two hundred dollars a year, two 
suits of clothing, rations, and medicine. Now 
he pays thirteen to fifteen dollars per month 
and a ration. "And they work just about 
as well, except when some accursed politi- 
cian comes uj) from New Orleans with a 



brass band, and sends word, as was done last 
fall, that General Butler has ordered them 
all to turn out to a political meeting." 

Oue of the hopeful signs is that I have not 
heard a single man in the State speculate 
about "the future of the negro." That sort 
of nonsense has disappeared. Nor have I 
anywhere fouud the negro shy of speaking 
his mind on political subjects. I laughed at 
a planter ouly last evening, who told me 
how well his hands worked on a system of 
shares iu the croji, of which I shall speak iu 
another place, and how faithful and service- 
able they were. He said, " But the scamps 
all voted against me at the last election." 
" I'm glad of it," ho added, " for I could not 
have refused them any thing they asked if 
they had voted for me, aud it saved me prob- 
ably live hundred dollars, for they know how 
to get a favor for a favor." 

I do not exaggerate when I say that the 
ouly cause of disorder in the State lies iu the 
corruption and iuefficiency of the State and 
liarish governments. Even Marshal Pack- 
ard tells me the State is now at peace. It 
has, as every Southeru, and, for that matter, 
every Northern State has, a proportion of 
lawless and ruffianly persous. This class 
is not numerous, but is composed of idlers, 
drunkards, aud bravos, who go armed ; and 
when a connnuuity is excited, they are ready 
to commit outrages, not ouly on blacks, but 
on whites, ev«5n on each other. I was touch- 
ed by the remark of an elderlj' man from a 
remote parish, who said, " The State govern- 
ment, aud the courts and officers it gives us, 
are so inefficient that we have to deal with 
these ruffianly young men ourselves. I have 
more than once taken my life in my hand to 
preserve the peace, when the sheriff was too 
cowardly or inefficient to do his duty. We 
have not had a murderer i^unished in our 
liarish iu five years, except one, and he was 
pardoned out of the penitentiary before his 
sentence expired. We live near the Texas 
line, and desperate men come aud go easily. 
Instead of being abused as disorderly, we 
people deserve praise that we have kej^t as 
good order as we have, when the governor 
has time and again appointed corrupt and 
inefficient officers, and when, in f;xct, society 
has had to be maintained against the abuses 
and inefficiency of the government by the 
l)rivate effort of the good citizens." 

This man spoke the truth. It is a solemn 
aud undeniable fact that the Republican 
rulers of Louisiana have disorganized socie- 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



57 



ty, iustead of protecting tlie good citizens. 
The only danger to tbo peace of Louisiana 
to-day lies in the corruption and inefficiency 
of her rulers, who call themselves Republic- 
ans, and have thus gained the countenance of 
the Northern Republican party and the sup- 
port of the Federal Administration. These 
men have committed a great crime against 
the State and against the country, the great- 
est crime which civilized men can commit ; 
for their misrule has struck a blow at the 
very foundations of society in Louisiana; 
they have corrupted the public morals, they 
have degraded and debauched the negroes, 
whom they were sent to lead into the exer- 
cise of citizenship ; and, surveying the story 
of their misrule, I am constrained to say that 
their plunder of the State, monstrous as it 
has been, is the least of their offenses, be- 
cause it is a graver crime to debauch and 
demoralize a State than to steal its treas- 
ure. 

Here are a few figures which give some 
idea of how the affairs of Louisiana have 
been managed under the Radical rule since 
1H68 : 

For mileage, per diem, and contingent ex- 
penses the General Assembly of the State 
cost, in 18G0, before the war, |99,4:}5; in 
1861, .$131,481}; in 186G, the year after the 
war, $1(34,906 ; in 1868, the year of recon- 
struction and of the beginning of Republic- 
an rule, $363,156 ; in 1869, $370,214 ; in 1870, 
$722,231; in 1871, $958,956; iu 1872, $350,000; 
iu 1873, $461,450 ; last year, a much smaller 
sum, over $200,000 ; but still, the Comptrol- 
ler of the State says, $60,000 above his esti- 
mates of the proper cost. 

In 1860 the State printing cost $40,900. 
In 1867, the year before reconstruction, it 
cost $75,000. The Republican Legislature 
of 1868 adopted a system under which each 
parish has an official organ, which prints at 
the pul)lic cost, not only the laws, but the 
entire journals of the Legislature and the 
proceedings of police -juries. This abuse 
has been checked, but not yet entirely stop- 
jicd. During its height, these petty jour- 
nals were, with a very few exceptions, own- 
ed by members of the Legislature. Hence 
tlieso persons every year voted themselves 
^handsome subsidies ; and the State-printing 
bill, which amounted to $75,000 in 1867, 
jumped to $431,345 in 1869, $313,920 in 1870, 
$397,600 in 1871, $154,752 iu 1872, and $100, 
866 in 1873. That is to say, the reconstruct- 
ors managed to spend out of the treasury 



in five years for printing alone very near- 
ly $1,500,000, and a great part of this they 
voted into their own pockets. 

In 1861 the State tax amounted to 29 > 
cents on $100 ; in 1867, the year before re- 
construction, to 37-1 cents ; in 1868, to 52J- 
cents ; in 1869, to 90 cents ; in 1871, to $1 45 ; 
iu 1872, to $2 15 ; in 1873, to $2 15 ; and in 
1874, to $1 45, at which it is fixed, now, 1 
believe, by the constitution. 

In spite of this enormous increase in the 
tax rate, the debt of the State has trebled 
since 1866. In that year the absolute and 
contingent debt (by which the State ac- 
countants here mean the debt owing, and 
for which the State has engaged itself for 
the future) amounted to $11,182,377. Iu 
1868, the year of reconstruction, it amount- 
ed to $16,885,682. In 1870 it had been run 
up to $40,456,734. 

The report of the Joint Legislative Com- 
mittee to investigate the State auditor's 
otlice — the committee is composed entirely 
of Republicans — gives the following sum- 
mary of the State debt at the beginning of 
the present year. I copy it literally, as it 
is official : 

Floating debt $2,165,171 71 

Bonds loaned property bftuks 4,830,683 33 

Bonded debt proper 22,134,800 00 

Contingent dfebt reported by auditor 10,895,000 00 

CoDtingeut debt not reported by auditor.. O.eOSj.iflO 00 

$49,004,155 04 
Add trust bonds and bonds missing 093,194 91 

Total $50,597,394 95 

The committee add to this statement 

these remarks : 



" In conclusion the commission find that a large por- 
tion of the public debt has arisen from extravagance, 
])rofligacy, and misuse of the revenues of the State; 
that as to all that portion created since 1SC5, the State 
did not realize over fifty cents on the dollar, nor was 
the amount realized expended for the benefit of the 
State to the extent of more than one-lialf ; in other 
words, the State has not been actually benetited in au 
amount exceeding one-fourth of the debt created, nor 
to an amount exceeding one-half of the taxes collect- 
ed since 1S65. The entire balance, say one half of all 
the taxes and three-fourths of all the present debt, has 
been squandered, or done worse with, by the admin- 
istration of the government since that date." 

Tbe State revenues, as given in the audi- 
tor's reports for the different years, were : 

1S6S $3,452,009 

ISCa 4,937,759 

1S70 6,.537,939 

1871 6,elU,S43 

1S72 4,312,033 

1S73 4,010,690 

1S74 3,514,333 

Total $33,387,665 

— collected iu taxes from the people for the 



A 



58 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



support of the State government alone in sev- 
en years, besides city ami parish taxes. 

The various petty monopolies and swin- 
dles to which State aid was so profusely 
given account for a small part of this huge 
debt and expenditure. Such extravagance 
as is mentioned by the auditor in liis last re- 
port (1875), in the following words, accounts 
for more : 

"Thus the number of pages (iu the Legislature), 
which by Act No. 11 of 1ST2 is limited to ten, at a com- 
peusatiou for each of $180, was iucreased more than 
sixty, and vouchers issued to them at from $150 to 
$1S0 each ; nor was this practice confined to this par- 
ticular class of employes, but was carried to other 
classes, such as eurolliug and committee clerks, por- 
ters, etc." 

He also, iu the same report, comjilains that 
he has vainly tried to get the Legislature to 
adopt a new plan of assessing property for 
taxation which " would save the State $156,- 
000 a year." In the auditor's report for the 
year 1871, complaint was made to the Legis- 
lature of the great cost of collecting the tax- 
es. " In 1870," says this report, " the actual 
commissions paid on account of assessors 
was $181,975, and the amount paid to tax- 
collectors $215,411. In 1871 the commissions 
of tax-collectors amouuted to $320,252, and 
that of assessors to $250,838." 

Of course there were some heavy jobs, 
which helped to run up the debt. For in- 
stance, in the auditor's report for 1871, 1 find 
a statement that during the two previous 
years the State, under an arrangement with 
the firm of Jones & Hugee, lessees of the 
penitentiary, had issued $500,000 in State 
bonds for machinery for that institution. 
The lessees were to pay one-half their clear 
profits to the State. They paid nothing, and 
in 1870 transferred their contract to auother 
set of men, the State agreeing thereafter to 
accept $5000 a year iu lieu of all profits, 
■with an increase of $1000 a year. Between 
1869 and 1871, in two years, " the peniten- 
,tiary had cost the State $796,000." 
"^ In 1868 the New Orleans, Mobile, and Chat- 
tanooga Eailroad was chartered in Louisi- 
ana, and it was determined to connect Mo- 
bile and New Orleans with Houston, Texas. 
In 1869 the Legislature agreed to Indorse the 
second-mortgage bonds of the road to the ex- 
tent of $12,500 per mile, and to make the in- 
dorsement for every section of ten miles 
built. The company built seveuty miles, 
and the State indorsed $875,000 of their sec- 
ond-mortgage bonds. The next Legislature 
agreed in addition to give the road a State 



subsidy of $3,000,000 of bonds, and of this 
they drew $750,000. The company now pro-\ 
posed to build a railroad from Vermillion- 
ville to Shreveport, and in 1871 the State 
agreed to take stock in this enterprise ($2,- 
500,000), paying for it in bonds, and the whole 
of these bonds were delivered to the com- 
pan J' when they had done one day's work on 
the road. They have never done any more. 

That is to say, the company have built in 
all seventy miles of an uncompleted, and, 
therefore, worthless road, and received from 
the State $4,250,000, or over $58,000 a mile, 
besides a grant of the use of a part of the 
New Orleans levee, valued at $1,000,000 ; and 
they have kept it all. Finally, it remains \ 
to be said that two different companies of ^ 
Northern capitalists oftered to build the 
Houston and New Orleans road without sub- 
sidy or State aid of any kind, but the Legis- 
lature would not give them a charter. 

A great deal of money has been spent and 
squandered since the war on the reconstruc- 
tion of the levees and their repair, and Demo- 
crats as well as Republicans have taken part 
in this jobbing, the greatest waste, however, 
being since 1868. Between 1868 and 1871, 
$4,750,000 of State bonds were issued for 
levee purposes, and still there are no levees 
worthy of the name. Most of the money was 
spent by a " State Board of Public Works," 
whose members were appointed by Governor 
Warmoth. Iu 1871 a dificrent system was 
adopted, which is still iu force, and under 
which a large part of the revenues of the 
State has been handed over for a long term 
of years to a jirivate corporation, with privir 
leges which enable it to misuse and squanders 



them in a most shocking way. 



/ 



By the act, this corporation, which was 
to furnish a million of dollars in capital 
stock, agreed to build and repair the levees 
of the State, and to be responsible in dama- 
ges to the planters and farmers who should 
suffer loss by overflow or crevasse. In re- 
turn for this, the Legislature gave it a mill- 
ion dollars down, before it began work, and 
the proceeds, annually, for a term of years, 
of a tax of four mills on the whole taxable 
property of Louisiana ; and authorized it to 
charge, against this great fund, sixty cents 
per cubic yard for the work. But a great 
part of the levee work, when done by plant- 
ers for themselves, has cost only from fifteen 
to eighteen cents per cubic yard, and thirty 
cents for the average of all kinds of work 
all over the State would be, experts tell me, 



LOUISIAlSrA IN APRIL, 1875. 



59 



a high rate. lu fact, the first charge was so 
exorbitant that it has been reduced to fifty 
cents; and iu 1874 the levee tax, which the 
company continues to receive, was reduced 
to three mills. But the company never had 
any money; the levees have not been kept 
in proper repair, and the losses from over- 
flow have never been so great as since it 
went into operation ; and, having no capi- 
tal of its own, if it is sued for damages 
it must pay these out of the State fund; 
and thus, in fact, the tax -payers pay their 
own insurance. The company receives about 
$720,000 a year. 

This was one of the most notorious jobs 
perpetrated by the Legislature, and attracted 
attention at the time because a great many 
members not only received bribes for its sup- 
port — Avhich was too common an occurrence 
to be noticed — but actually gave their re- 
ceipts for the money paid them. The fol- 
lowing letter, of which the original is before 
me, shows how openly legislative bribery 
was carried on under Warmoth's adminis- 
tration. The writer of it was then member 
of Assembly, is now State Senator, and mem- 
ber of the State School Board, and, I am sor- 
ry to say, is a negro : 

" House of Representatives, State of Louisiana, ) 
New Orleans, February 25th, 1871. ) 

" Gentlemen of the Finance Committee of Louisiana 
Levee Compamj: 
"Sirs, —Please pay to Hon. A. "W. Faulkner the 
amount you may deem proper to pay on account of 
Levee Bill, I being absent at the time under orders of 
the House. But would have voted for the bill had I 
been here. Mr. Faulkner is authorized to receive aud 
receipt for me. Very respectfully, gentlemen, 

"Your obedient servant, 
"T. B. Stajups." 

Surely the brazenness of corruption could 
go no further than this — when a legislator 
claims a bribe on the score that he would 
have performed the corrupt service had he 
been in his place, and sends his friend not 
merely to receive, but to receipt for it. 

The city of Now Orleans is made to pay a 
very great part of the State tax, and has 
been, besides, burdened in various ways by 
the Legislature, which has set apart a large 
part of its revenues for State or special 
purposes. It has now a debt of its own of 
about $22,000,000, and its tax-rate has been 
run u]} to three per cent. About $17,000,000 
of its bonds are worth but thirty-five cents 
on the dollar in the market. Here is an 
example which tells the tale of wasteful mis- 
government : An estate, which could have 
been sold in 1867 forever $1,000,000, showed 



on its books, in 1872, this remarkable con- 
dition : After paying for iusui'ance and usual 
repairs, the taxes levied that year on the 
property exceeded the entire rental by $540. 
In the next year, 1873, the receipts exceeded 
the taxes, repairs, and insurance by §900. 
Yet, in 1867, this property netted seven per 
cent, on over $1,000,000 — that is to say, more 
than $70,000, after paying insurance, taxes, 
and repairs. 

It is not the wealthy alone who complain. 
I have spoken with at least a dozen small 
property-owners in the city, and they all tell 
the same tale. In the country the small 
farmers complain that they are forced to 
pay the heavy taxes, while in many cases 
their rich neighbors resist, and are allowed 
to refuse payment or to delay. 

I was struck with the story of exaspera- 
tion told me by a man who said, " One jiiece 
of property after another belonging to mem- 
bers of my family had been sold out for tax- 
es. Two years ago we came nearly to the 
end. We could not sell, and we could not 
pay the terrible taxes. I went to the sheriff", 
I aud said to him, ' This property which you 
are advertising is the last possession of my 
mother and sisters, and their only support. 
I warn you that on the day you put it up at 
auction I am going to attend the sale with 
my double-barreled shot-gun.' And it was 
not sold. Next year we were fortunately 
able to pay." 

Now, I know the man very well who thus 
did, and I know him to be a peaceable, law- 
respecting citizen, one of the most im^jortant 
and most useful members of the community 
in which he lives. He saw that I was shock- 
ed and pained at his story, and said, "What 
could I do ? We were wealthy people before 
the war ; we have been contented in our pov- 
erty since, and I have worked hard, and lived 
very economically. My sisters now teach in 
a public school. But the times are so hard 
and the taxes so high that it is all we can 
do to live, and when I saw the last little 
dependence of my mother and sisters about 
to be sold to satisfy these cormorants aud 
thieves, I could not stand it." 

In the parish of St. Landry alone, as I 
think I have before stated, there were be- 
tween November, 1871, and November, 1873, 
eight hundred and twenty-one sales of plan- 
tations and lands for taxes. Yet Louisiana 
is by nature one of the richest States in the 
Union, and New Orleans is one of the great- 
est commercial ports. Is it surprising that 



60 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



the wbole white population of the State, ex- 
cept the office-holders and their relatives 
and iutimates, united, in 1874, in the endeav- 
or to overthrow a party which has so abused 
its powers ? 

I spent some days looking through the 
acts of the Legislature of Louisiana since 
the first reconstruction Legislature, in 1868, 
and a more anmsiug and preposterous exhi- 
hition of wholesale legislative plundering it 
would be difficult to imagine. The bare ti- 
tles of the acts whose sole and transparent 
purpose was plunder would fill half a dozen 
of these pages. I must content myself with 
a brief mention of but a few sample laws 
granting exclusive pi'ivileges, giving away 
the State's money, creating new offices, or 
adding to the taxes. 

One of the earliest acts of the reconstruct- 
ors — who are believed to have come into 
the State as the missionaries of great moral 
ideas — was the passage of a law giving the 
exclusive monopoly of selling lottery, policy, 
and "combination" ticliets in the State to a 
company which calls itself the "Louisiana 
State Lottery Company." 

Lest the profane should imagine that this 
monopoly was intended to promote the mere- 
ly selfish advantage of the incorporators, it 
is distinctly stated in the charter, which 
forms part of the act, that the lottery com- 
pany is a purely charitable and beneficent 
body, created for the unmixed benefit of the 
people of Louisiana. " The objects and pur- 
poses of this corporation are, first, the protec- 
tion of the State against the great losses here- 
tofore incurred by sending large amounts of 
money to other States and foreign counti'ies 
for the purchase of lottery-tickets and other 
devices, thereby impoverishing our own peo- 
ple ; second, to establish a solvent and reli- 
able home institution for the sale of lottery, 
policy, and other tickets ; third, to jirovide 
means to raise a fund for educational and 
chai'itable X)urposes for the citizens of Loui- 
siana." 

The monopoly is to last twenty-five years ; 
it is made a criminal offense in any one un- 
authorized by the company to sell any kind 
of lottery-ticket anywhere in the State ; the 
company is exempted from all taxes and li- 
cense fees whatever — State, city, or parish ; 
and for these monstrous privileges and ex- 
emptions it pays into the State treasury — 
for the educational fund — the petty sum of 
forty thousand dollars per annum ! 

The company is now comjiosed almost en- 



tirely of a few men living in New York and 
New Jersey ; on a million of capital they are 
believed to make not less than seven hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars clear profit every 
year; they have established policy-shops and ^ 
petty gambliug dens around the markets and 
other public places in New Orleans, which 
perpetually demoralize the laboring class, 
and particularly negro men and women, and 
over which the city government has no con- 
trol; and they have agents and solicitors all 
over the State, tem^jting the poor and igno- 
rant to gamble, providing for this end what 
they call a "combination game," which can 
be played even by the owner of a ten-cent 
jiiece. 

In 1868 the Legislature chartered the Mis- 
sissippi Valley Navigation Company of the 
South and West, and in 1870 an amendment 
to the charter gave the company $100,000 of 
State money, for which the State was to re- 
ceive stock. The company got the money, 
but I can not hear that they are in business 
to-day, though they were authorized to 
"construct steamboats, warehouses, docks," 
etc. Another scheme was the Eed River 
Navigation Company, which was authorized 
to receive $135,000 in State bonds. 

The bayous or river estuaries of the State 
early became a fine field for swindling. For 
instance, the Legislature of 1870 passed an 
act incorporating a company to improve 
Bayou Bartholomew, in the northern part 
of the State, and granting State bonds to 
aid the enterprise. Within sixteen days 
after the passage of the act. State warrants 
to the amount of $118,000 had been issued 
to the company. The auditor at that time 
happened to be an honest man ; he refused to 
recognize these warrants; suit was brought 
by the company, and the Supreme Court 
twice declared the proceedings fraudulent, 
Ludeliug, chief-justice (whom the United 
States Supreme Court last year denounced 
for fraud in another matter), alone dissent- 
ing ; and on a motion to rematid the casa 
for a rehearing, which Ludeliug granted, 
Judge Wyly, dissenting, said, "Act 59, to 
improve the navigation of Bayou Bartholo- 
mew, never authorized a contract to exceed 
$40,000. I regard the contract for $118,000 
for that work as a deliberate fraud upon the 
State. Not a single requirement for letting 
out and making the contract according to 
Act 59 seems to have been complied witli." 

Now, then, mark what follows. The claim 
was twice denied by the Supreme Court. 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



61 



The Legislature of 1874 created a board of ] 
audit, -with power to settle outstanding lia- 
bilities ; and this board, -while I was in New 
Orleans, quietly allowed a large part of this 
claim. 

A company whose main purpose appears 
to have been cattle-stealing was organized 
and chartered in 1874, under the title of 
" Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Animals." The Legislature gave it sole 
and exclusive charge of all the pounds in 
New Orleans, with authority to seize and 
arrest animals of all kinds in the streets, 
and impound them, and charge the owners 
five dollars a day for their detention, and to 
sell them outright at the end of eight days. 
The summary arrest of goats in the outskirts 
of the city came near creating a mob of Irish 
women ; and, to prevent cruelty to animals, 
the company at oue time, I am told, began 
to arrest horses left standing in the streets 
while their riders were transacting business 
in the shops. 

An act of the Legislature to improve Bay- 
ous Glaises and Rouge gave the incorporators 
sole and exclusive power to navigate these 
bayous with vessels of all kinds, exempted 
their capital stock from taxation of every 
kind, and allowed them to levy a toll on all 
vessels except their own, or which they al- 
low to be used on these bayous. The im- 
provements to be made were very slight. 

In 1871 the Mississippi River Packet Com- 
pany was incorporated by act of the Legis- 
lature. . Among the incorporators were An- 
toine, now lieutenant-governor, then sena- 
tor; Kelso, Monette, Pinchback, Ingraham, 
and Barber, all State senators, and Pollard, 
member of Assembly. The object of the 
company was to run steamboats on the Mis- 
sissippi River. The State was pledged to 
subscribe .$-250,000 on the organization of 
the company ; and, so far as I can see in the 
act, it was to enjoy no benefits or privileges 
whatever. 

The same Legislature established the Lou- 
isiana Warehouse Company " to promote the 
interests of commerce." Among the incor- 
porators I find mentioned in the act Senator 
West, then administrator of improvements 
in New Orleans, and Collector Casey. The 
company Avas authorized to issue bonds to 
the amount of $1,500,000, and the State was 
required to guarantee the payment of 'the 
interest and principal of these bonds on con- 
dition that the company should deposit se- 
curities equal in value to the bonds issued, 



which securities, the act says, may be Vbank 
indorsements or other good aud solvent 
bonds!" 

By an act authorizing a company to im- 
prove Bayous Portage aud Yokeley,the State 
gave the company $100,000 by way of aid ; 
aud if the improvements should cost more 
than this sum, the company was empowered 
to lay a tax on all the lands benefited, to make 
up the /leficiency, and to sell for taxes any 
such lands whose owners had not paid after 
sixty days' notice. No limit was set of cost, 
and the company was made its own tax-col- 
lector. 

A company chartered to improve Loggy 
Bayou and Lake Bisteneau received §50,000 
State aid, and the people say, pulled out 
about twenty stumps for the money. A com- 
pany chartered to improve Bayou Terre- 
bonne received the exclusive privilege to im- 
prove Bayous Bceuf and Crocodile, aud was 
authorized to receive $80,000, a sum asserted 
to be preposterously beyond the value of the 
service. 

Tlie Mexican Gulf Canal Company drew 
$36,000 in bonds from the State in aid of its 
enterprise, then abandoned it and merged 
with another company for a diff'erent pur- 
pose ; got control of the drainage fund ; fell 
into the hands of one man ; and he, in the 
name of the company, is now doing a neces- 
sary work of drainage at a cost a hundred 
per cent, higher than responsible citizens 
stand ready to do it for. 

The Legislature even chartered a compa- 
ny and gave it the sole and exclusive right 
to clean privies in New Orleans, and to empty 
their contents into the Mississippi River; 
•made it obligatory on citizens to have this 
service performed at fixed intervals ; and 
established a scale of charges much higher 
than that at which the service had long been 
performed. 

Even the purchase by the State of the St. 
Louis Hotel, to be used as a state - house, 
was a swindling transaction. Several mem- 
bers of the Legislature and others were char- 
tered as the Louisiana National Building As- 
sociation. They got from the owners of the 
St. Louis Hotel an agreement to sell that 
building at a set price, and, this done, made 
a lease of it to the State for nineteen years 
at $50,000 a year and entire exemption from 
taxation. They overshot their mark, and 
the outcry raised against this act of extor- 
tion compelled the annulling of the lease. 
Thereupon the Citizeus' Bank bought the 



62 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



same building outright for $84,000, wbicli the 
Buikling Association had leased to the State 
for $50,000 per annum. 

The Louisiana Building Association was 
enjoined, and could not act under that title. 
They clianged the companj^'s name to the 
New Orleans National Building Association, 
bought the hotel for $149,000; and the Hahn 
Legislatui-e, which met after the dispersion 
of the WiUz body, in the spriug of 1875, 
gave $250,000 for the building. These fig- 
ures and other figures above are authentic. 
It is not always easy for men to cover uji 
their tracks, and these men have not been 
careful to do so. 

In 1870 the Legislature passed a law au- 
thorizing the improvement of the old City 
Park, a piece of ground which had been held 
for the purpose many years. During the 
year two politicians. South worth and Bloom- 
er, got a written agreement from the owners 
of a large vacant piece of ground — the only 
large tract, except the old Park, near the 
city — to sell it to them at a fixed price 
— $600,000. The Legislature of 1871 next 
ameuded the park improvement law so as 
to allow the commissioners to buy land for a 
new park, and made an appropriation of 
money to carry it into effect. The governor 
now appointed park commissioners, and one 
of these, by an odd coincidence, was South- 
worth, who was also at that time recorder 
of mortgages. Pinchback was another park 
commissioner, and Senator West another. 
Southworth and those interested with him 
next acquired title to the iiroperty they had 
held under agreement, but paid only $65,000 
down ; the remainder of the purchase mon- 
ey was left on mortgage. Then, on the 15th 
of August, they sold to the city one -half of 
their purchiise for $800,000, receiving $65,000 
in cash and $19.5,000 in bonds, while $540,000 
of debt was transferred from their shoulders 
to the city's. 

It is the common street talk here, that, 
"after this transaction was completed, An- 
toine, the lieutenant-governor, went about 
complaining that Pinchback had cheated 
him out of $40,000, which he had in some 
way expected to get out of tlie affair." The 
park is still unimproved ; it is used as a cow- 
pasture ; but the city is paying interest on 
its debt for a park^J^^ 

I could go on indefinitely with stories of 
this kind, for I have only culled here and 
there out of the acts of tlie Legislature, and 
as I turned over the leaves of the books I 



met with dozens of petty swindles : ferry 
monopolies granted to members of the Leg- 
islature, oftenest at points where ferries al- 
readj' existed ; acts to remove a county-seat 
to some member's farm or plantation ; the 
creation of new counties; and acts incorpo- 
rating a multitude of petty villages, some 
having less than three hundred inhabitants, 
afflictiug their inhabitants with a city gov- 
ernment, mayor, and administrators, author- 
izing these officers to lay taxes " not to ex- 
ceed the parish tax;" and providing fees 
and salaries for the needless officers. Nor 
was even this the worst. I know some snch 
little towns which have never, since their 
incorporation, been ruled by the officers they 
chose : on some pretext the elected men are 
rejected, and the governor then fills the va- 
cancies thus created. 

So severe has been the pressure of taxa- 
tion, and so greatly has business been pros- 
trated in the State by the long-continued 
misrule, that, according to an official report, 
in three years, 1871-'73, 47,491 tax seizures 
were made in the city of New Orleans by the 
sheriff; I have seen parish newspapers three 
of whose sides were filled with advertise- 
ments of tax sales — this not in parishes 
which prudently refused to^ pay taxes, as q 
few remote ones have done; and I have ^^ 
before me a statement, certified by the 
recorder, showing that from the 10th of 
November, 1871, to the 18th of November, 
1873, 821 tracts of land and plantations in 
the parish of St. Martin were actually sold 
by the tax-collector for State and parish 
taxes. Yet, in spite of their exorbitant com- 
missions, the official report of the State au- 
ditor for 1874 contains a list of defaulting 
tax-collectors containing twenty names, who 
are reported to be in default to the amount 
of $200,000. 

Nor can it be said that the valuations are 
low, for in New Orleans the assessors receive 
by law five per cent, for their work, and the 
assessment is made annually. In the par- 
ishes, the tax-collectors, who have more or 
less to do with the assessments, receive ten 
per cent, of their collections, and in many 
cases it has been proved that they received 
taxes in greenbacks, and turned them in in 
depreciated scrip. 

The city of New Orleans, being largely 
Democratic, has been afflicted with a double 
set of assessors and collectors — one for the 
State, the other for the city. The State's 
annual assessment of property in New Or- 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875, 
leans cost, in 1871, $100,000. This -wrong 



"•S 



-n-as so great that iu the State auditor's re- 
port for 1872 I read, " Within the parish of 
Orleans two per cent, on the amount of the 
tax levied would be a fair compensation to 
the tax-collector, acting in the capacity of 
assessor; or, should the General Assembly so 
determine, an agreement with the city ad- 
ministration, at a nominal expense, to fur- 
nish complete copies of their assessment 
rolls, would thus make a further reduction 
of expenses without detriment to the inter- 
ests of the State." And again, " Within the 
parish of Orleans assessors are paid Cj per- 
centage upon the amount of their assess- 
ment rolls. As a consequence, experience 
has shown that great injustice is done by 
placing assessments very high — in some in- 
stances 150 per cent, above the true value of 
property. A large commission is thus paid 
by the State; and afterward, iu many in- 
stances, the assessment is reduced by order 
of court or otherwise, thereby the State los- 
ing the compensation paid the assessor, be- 
sides the annoyance and expense it unjustly 
entails upon the tax-payer. 

The assessment and collection of the State 
tax for New Orleans cost $175,000 last year, 
I am told. The result of all this is that 
property in New Orleans is almost worth- 
less, and totally unsalable. Nobody likes to 
be a tax-payer. A house and lot assessed 
for |3G,000 was sold in March, 1875, for $11,- 
000. Good residence property has fallen 
since 18G8 more than fifty per cent, in value. 
Rents produce very small net income. 

Several years ago the Legishitui-e was per- 
suaded to pass a law that the parish tax 
should not exceed the State tax iu amount, 
and a monber of the ring here showed me 
this law to prove that the complaints of ex- 
orbitant taxation iu the country parishes 
must be without foundation. He forgot to 
tell me of another law which allows the 
holder of parish scrip to sue the parish, and 
directs the judge, in the case of such suit, to 
lay a special tax on the parish for the pay- 
ment of the scrip at par. This is contin- 
ually done, and the business of buying up 
depreciated parish scrip, with the object of 
forcing the parish to pay it by getting a 
judgment against it, is so common that sev- 
eral tax-collectors have admitted to me that 
they had engaged iu it. It is a perfectly 
safe speculation. 



One can not study the politics of Louisi- 



ana and her politicians long without becom- 
ing aware that the Radical leaders are, as 
political managers, more skillful and adroit 
than the Couservatives. They understand 
the generalship of a partisan campaign ; 
and if they only had a little principle or a 
little of that wisdom which would teach 
them that misgovernment must have an end, 
some of them might even now rule the State 
for another term of years. Their ditficulty 
is that they have so long used the worst ar- 
guments, and the most corrupt and corrupt- 
ing means, that they can not stop without 
running a risk of losing their adherents. I 
believe Governor Kellogg would now like 
to make his administration honest ; but ho 
■would also like to go to the Senate, and the 
result is that he will be no more efficient 
than those who control him will let him be. 

The subalterns, the petty officers of the 
Radical army, are, as a general thing, a very 
poor set. With here and there an exception, 
they hang on to office with a tenacity which 
is almost pitiful ; it is a sort of death-grip. 
A Radical member of the Legislature, whom 
I asked why he opposed the Wheeler adjust- 
ment, said, with a pathetic quaver in his 
voice, "Because if that is passed, it means 
that I shall go out." 

I thought he meant that ho would be 
driven out of the State, and asked him if 
he really feared violence. 

He replied, " Not at all ; you don't under- 
stand me; I mean that I shall have to go 
out of politics. If the Couservatives once 
get a majority in the House, they'll carry 
the State at the next election." 

This man is a member of the Legislature ; 
he had enjoyed three or four terms, but he 
wanted another. To "go out" seemed to 
him like dying does to common mortals, and 
his dolorous face was a study. It never 
occurred to him to think that the Conserv- 
atives had already carried the State, and 
were, in the adjustment, giving up a part 
of the majority they had fairly gained. 

The strongest, and probably the most dan- 
gerous, politician in the State on either side 
is the United States marshal, Packard. He 
is reputed to be a man of unflinching cour- 
age, strong will, and no scruples. A citizen 
of Maine, he has lived iu Louisiana since the 
war; ho married there, became early known 
as a shrewd and successful political organ- 
izer; and was made United States marshal 
by General Grant. His body is large and 
somewhat heavy, and his mind does not 



6? 

move rapidly. His single idea is to keep 
Louisiana iu Kepublican bauds, and his ouly 
method is to mass the coloi'cd vote. 

" Packard," said an honest Republican to 
me in New Orleaus, " stands in our way in 
making a split in parties here, which it is 
so necessary for the welfare of the State to 
do. He always wants to mass the colored 
vote ; he believes in the color-line. He dis- 
courages every attempt to bring the right 
kind of white men into our party, and al- 
ways has something against a new man who 
would share our political fortunes — that he 
was in the rebel army, or something of that 
kind. I think bnt for Packard we might 
really make such a break and reorganiza- 
tion of parties as would give the State rest 
and permanent good government." 

In Washington, last winter, Mr. Packard 
appeared as one of the strenuous advocates 
of the Habeas Corpus and Force bill, and 
his argument was that, if this measure were 
I)assed,he would guarantee to carry the State 
for the Repnblicau party in 1876; but if it 
were not passed, he would promise nothing. 

Here in New Orleans he opposed the 
Wheeler adjustment at first, and very strong- 
ly; and it was one of his adherents who 
amused me by denouncing this adjustment 
with a good deal of profanity, as " Sure to 
denationalize the Louisiana question." 

Amidst the general demoralization and 
corruption, it is a part of Packard's strength 
that he is believed to be pecuniarily honest. 
He has a little the air of a fanatic, but he is 
iu reality an extremely adroit and unscrupu- 
lous politician. They say he also wants to 
go to the Senate. 

As a politician he tolerates no rival near 
his throne. I was told of a case where he 
imagined that a Republican was obtaining 
too much inlluence iu a parish. He sent up 
— it was last year — a steamboat with a brass 
band and some " organizers," and set up a 
rival Republican organization, whose aim 
was to drive out the Republican leaders 
whom he did not like. It was, as it hap- 
pened, one of his failures ; but it sufficiently 
shows that he means to rule. 

The office of United States marshal in one 
of these Southern States gives a man very 
extraordinary powers ; for, so f;ir from Wash- 
ington, and among a people whose com- 
plaints are not much listened to, he is a kind 
of viceroy. Under the Enforcement acts he 
may make summary arrests on frivolous 
pretexts ; he may use the army to do it ; he 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



is a peace officer with practically no supe- 
rior, very loosely defined powers, and small 
responsibility, particularly if he is trusted 
by the President. That you may not think 
I overstate the authority lodged in Marshal 
Packard's hands, I transcribe here part of 
a general order to " commanding officers of 
posts and detachments," and issued from 
"Head-quarters, Department of the Gulf:" 

" Whenever the United States marshal of the dis- 
trict in which you are serving, or any of his deputies, 
shall make written application to you for a detach- 
ment of troops to protect him or them in the perform- 
ance of their duties, or to aid him or them to serve 
legal process, you will at once furnish such detach- 
ment, reporting your action to these head-quarters." 

Now, Mr. Packard is not only United States 
marshal, for he unites with this office anoth- 
er of even greater importance — he is chair- 
man of the Republican State Central Com- 
mittee. 

That is to say, the United States troops in 
Louisiana are placed by the Federal Admin- 
istration under the orders of the chief man- 
ager of the Republican party. 

Every United States soldier in the State 
must obey the orders of the chairman of the 
Republican State Central Committee. 

Such a situation, even if it were not 
abused, would be liable to suspicion, and 
must give just cause of complaint to the 
other party. Moreover, it is hardly possible 
that it should not be misused. For instance : 
It is in evidence before the Congressional 
committee that, jnst before the election of 
1874, United States cavalry appeared in sev- 
eral parishes, armed with blank warrants of 
arrest issued in New Orleans by the marshal. 

But why should a citizen, innocent of 
wrong, be alarmed at such things ? 

Well, because it is not a pleasant expe- 
rience, which some of them have had at IVfr. 
Packard's hands, to be dragged down to 
New Orleans from a distant country parish, 
put under bail, and then allowed to go home 
again at their own expense. I have heard 
from army officers several cases where such 
an arrest of a man against whom nothing 
was ever proved or attempted to be proved, 
caused great alarm and suffering to his fam- 
ily, which was dependent on his daily labor 
for support ; and of other cases where men 
lay out in the woods for days, though con- 
scious of innocence, out of a dread of Pack- 
ard's blank warrants. 

Moreover, while such warrants were sent 
abroad just before the election, none were 
sent out after the election, when, if ever, it 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



65 



might be supposed that offenses had been 
committed. 

Ill a State where a political struggle of 
great bitterness and vital importance is go- 
ing on, the chief of one party thus, you see, 
has authority to command at any time, at 
any place, and for such purpose as he may 
decide, the services of the United States 
army, and may and does use soldiers to ar- 
rest his political ojiponents. It is at least 
an Inconvenience to the other party. No 
doubt they would like to have troops, too. 

The supervisors of registration are ap- 
pointed by the governor, and are naturally, 
and in fact, partisans of the party in power. 
Fraudulent registration has been proved 
on several occasions ; and I have before me 
a registration certificate now, blank as to 
name, date, and residence, but duly signed 
by the supervisor of Assumption Parish. 
The certificate is as follows : 

"U^'ITED STATES OF AirERICA. 

** State of Louisiana, Parish of , , 18 — . 

"I, , do solemnly swear, aflSrni, that I 

was duly registered as a qualified elector of the par- 
ish of , in the month of , IS—; that a cer- 
tificate of such registration was at the time issued to 
me by the supervisor of registration for the said par- 
ish, which certificate of registration has been lost or 
destroyed. 

" I am years of age, ; my occupation is 

; and 1 now reside at . I have no other 



place of residence. . 

"Sworn and subscribed to, this day of 

A.D. IS—, before me. E. E. Gaurb, 

"Supervisor of Registration for the 
Parish of Assumption." 



" DUPLICATE. 

" [Original No. — .] 
"UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

** State of Louisiana, Parish of . 

" I hereby certify that was on the 

day of , IS—, duly registered as a qualified elector 

on the original registry of this parish, No. , a citi- 
zen of the United States, and residing at , born 

in , age , naturalized in Court, State 

of , day of , IS—. Now resides at 



" Witness my hand, this day of - 



-, A.D. 18—. 



"E. E. Gauhe, 

"Supervisor of liepistralionfor the 

Parish of Assumption." 

The nature of this instrument, which as- 
serts a personal appearance of the applicant 
for registration, makes it, of course, impossi- 
ble to be legally signed in blank. 

Now, spurious registration papers would 
be of little value but for a peculiar clause in 
the election laws, which authorizes a voter 
to vote at any poll in his parlsli, or at any 
poll in the ward of his residence in New Or- 
leans. A parish is a county. What is to 
5 



prevent a man with a dozen registration cer- 
tificates in his pocket from voting at a dozen 
polls in his county ? Nothing, except the 
difficulty of getting to so many on the same 
day. This rule, which may have been made 
for good reasons — I don't know as to that — 
is in effect an invitation to fraud. 

Finally comes the returning board for the 
State, named by the Senate, which sits at 
New Orleans and overhauls the returns, and, 
as was proved to the satisfaction of the Con- 
gressional committee this year, substantial- 
ly does what it j)leases with them. 

Among other things it hears charges of 
intimidation, and, in order that every thing 
may be in readiness to bring forward sncli 
charges, these prudent Republicans print 
beforehand "intimidation certificates," to 
which ignorant negroes are persuaded to set 
their " -{-." marks. Here is an example, and 
on the other side of the same paper you 
will find a certificate of the same Narcisse 
Jacques, which also is sworn to before a no- 
tary public, and which also tells in detail 
quite a little tale of intimidation — but of a 
different kind : 

" state of Louisiana, Parish of St. Martin. 

"Before me, the undersigned authority, personally 
came and appeared Mr. Narcisse Jacques, a resident 
of the parish of St. Martin, who, being first duly sworn, 
declares and says that he is entitled to register and 
vote in the said parish of St. Martin, that he is a Re- 
publican, and that he would have voted the ticket an- 
nexed hereto, including for member of the Forty-fourth 
Congress, had he not been prevented from registering 
by fear of personal violence from armed bodies of meu 
who have been patrolling the country. 

his 
" Narcisse + Jacques. 
mark. 
"Sworn and subscribed before me, this 27th day of 
October, 18T4. Gustave Baki;r, 

" Justice of the Peace." 

" state of Louisiana, Parish of St. Martin. 

"Before the undersigned authority, a justice of the 
peace of the parish of St. Martin, personally came and 
appeared Narcisse Jacques, a freednian of the parish 
of St. Martin, who, after being duly sworn, said and 
declared that the paper on which is written the affi- 
davit on the other side was handed to him by Onezi- 
phone Delahoussaye, the sheriff" of the parish of St. 
Martin, and that, though he aftixed his mark to said 
affidavit, he was deceived as to its contents; that 
said affidavit is false ; that he was not prevented reg- 
istering, and so informed Gustave Baker, the justice 
of the peace, and Oneziphone Delahoussaj'e, Jun., the 
sheriff"; that said affidavit was signed by him in the 
Federal camp established at Breaux Bridge, in the par- 
ish of St. Martin, before and during the last election ; 
and that he had previously been threatened by one 
Robert Allen, of the parish of St. Martin, a Radical 
leader, that, unless he registered and voted the Radi- 
cal ticket, he (affiant) would be arrested, tried, hanged, 
or killed by the Federal cavalry tlien engaged in gath- 
ering negroes to the registration office. The threats 
of the said Robert Allen wcie made in the presence 
of Darmas Gindry, his employer, who told him to 



66 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



•f 



do as he wished aud thought proper, and lent him a 
horse to go to Breaiix Bridge; that the said Robert 
Allen told affiant's emploj'er, Darmas Giudry, that he 
(Gindry) would also be arrested by the Federal cav- 
alry, his 

"NAEOtsBB + Jacques. 
mark. 

"Witness to the above mark. Euo. A. Duoiiamp. 

"Sworn to aud subscribed this 2Sth day of Decem- 
ber, A.D. 1ST4. OsoAK Halphen, J. P." 

It is a singular fact tliat iu tlio greater 
number of parishes tLe registration lists of 
1874 show that the colored registered voters 
are more numerous, compared with the col- 
ored population, than the white registered, 
compared with the white population, taking 
the census of 1870 as a basis. For instance, 
inPlaqueniine Parish the registry lists show 
one white name for every seven aud one- 
fifth of the total white population ; but one 
black name for every three and one-eighth 
of the total colored population. But while 
I was in Plaquemiue, out of a panel of forty- 
eight names drawn for jurors, from the reg- 
istry lists of 1874, only twelve could be 
found. The other thirty -six were non-ex- 
istent — that is to say, they were fraudulent- 
ly registered names. Iu St. Charles the 
whites registered ^re one in three aud a 
half, the blacks one in two and a half, of 
the resiiectivo population. Iu St. James, 
the white registry was one iu four and a 
half, the black one in two aud a half, of 
their population. In St. Landry, where it 
was pretended that there was intimidation, 
white aud black both registered one in four 
aud a half of their population. In Carroll, 
the whites registered five aud one-third, aud 
the blacks three and seven-tenths, of their 
population. In Terre Bonne, the registered 
voters stood — white, four aud seven-eighths ; 
black, three and two-thirds ; and so on. In 
many parishes the proportions were'reversed; 
but in the greater number the colored meu 
registered a larger proportion to their popu- 
lation than the whites to theirs. This does 
not look much like iutimidatiou. 

Finally, the vote of 1874 was uncommon- 
ly full. " The whole number of votes regis- 
tered was 167,604. Of these, 146,523 voted. 
This is a larger proportion of registered 
voters than usually vote iu any of the North- 
ern States." So say the Congressional com- 
mittee. 

" When a man marries, his troubles begin," 
says an old song. In Louisiana, when a man 
votes the Conservative ticket, his troubles 
begin. He must prove that he voted, and 
that he did not frighten some other body 



from voting ; and when ho has done that, 
then the returning board may, after all, turn 
him out. 

I have gone into this detail to show you 
that it is no joke to carry an election against 
the Republicans iu Louisiaua. If the party 
in power were united, and had the Federal 
Government to support them, they could 
easily, Avith all this machinery, from Pack- 
ard to printed intimidation certificates aud 
returning board, remain in for a century. 

But, 1st. They are no longer united. A 
portion of the Republicans certainlj-^ desire 
honest government. They are a small mi- 
nority of the party, but they are hopeful. 

2d. The negroes are becoming a nuisauce 
to their corrupt white allies. Uuder the iu- 
sijiratiou of Piuchback and other ambitious 
colored leaders, they begin to grasp after all 
the offices. "We have the majority," they 
say : " we cast the votes ; the offices belong 
to us ; we do not need you." They are ready 
to give judgeships to the whites; but the Leg- 
islature, the sheriifs' places, the police-juries, 
(county supervisors) — all the places where 
money is to be spent or appropriated — they 
demand, iu those parishes where they are 
the majority. 

"I was very glad of the affair of the 14th 
of September in New Orleans," said a Re- 
publican to me. This was the affair in which 
M'Euery took possession of the government. 

I asked him why, and he said, " We have 
a very heavy colored majority in my parish. 
We have always managed honestly, aud vigi- 
lantly protected the blacks in all their rights; 
but we have given the important places to 
intelligent and honest whites. Last sum- 
mer I suddenly found that some colored lead- 
ers were quietly getting up an opposition to 
our mauagement, and were deternnued to 
turn us out, aud put in an entire colored set 
of office-holders. All our white people were 
uneasy ; for an ignorant and corrupt police- 
jury and sheriff might run us into heavy 
debt. The blacks would not listen to argu- 
ments or appeals from us white Republicans, 
who had always been their allies aud pro- 
tectors. .Just then came the 14th of Septem- 
ber ; the news of M'Euerj^'s success flew up 
to our parish ; it was believed that the Fed- 
eral Government would recognize him ; the 
negroes were alarmed ; they flocked around 
me again, aud were very ready to heed the 
good counsels of those of us who had been 
for years, as they knew, their safe guides 
and advisers, but whom just before they had 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



67 



been quite ready to throw overboard with 
contempt." 

This incident will give yon the key to an 
important part of the situation in Louisiana 
and in Mississiiipi as well. The blacks are 
not wise enough to resist the allurements of 
their own corrupt leaders. Office has great 
temptations for them ; and the strongest 
Eadicals have confessed to me that the blacks 
have no shame about bribery or cori'uption, 
no sense of the dignity of office. I speak 
of them, of course, as a class. There are ex- 
ceptions. 

You will see that no tax-payer, no matter 
of what party, can atford to give up entirely 
to the colored voters. 

The Conservative politicians have not 
been wise. They have too often been ruled 
by their tempers. For instance, under the 
natural irritation of niisgovernment, much 
of which is truly blamable to the ignorant 
blacks whom the Radicals have brought into 
power, the Conservatives in State conven- 
tion last year at Baton Rouge, adopted a 
resolution declaring that they would nomi- 
nate no colored men to any office whatever. 
It was seen by themselves to be so foolish an 
act, that no sooner had the convention ad- 
journed, than in tliirtecn parishes the same 
men did actually nominate colored men on 
their tickets. But they were too late. Their 
adroit opponents made full use of the Baton 
Rouge platform, and in most instances pre- 
vented the break whicii tlio wiser part of 
the Conservatives had sought to make. 

An intelligent negro in one of the coun- 
try parishes expressed to me his disgust at 
tlie bad character of the men nominated 
and elected by the Radicals in 1874 in his 
parish. 

" Bu t," I said, " if you knew that, why did 
you not vote for the compromise ticket, 
which also had colored men on it, and hon- 
est, intelligent ones, I am told?" 

He replied, " It came too late. The Radical 
organizers had already been around among 
our people; our ticket was nominated and 
our people pledged to support it, and the 
Baton Rouge platform made them feel an- 
gry." And so they voted for men whom they 
knew to be corrupt. 

It is not nice ; but it is a sample of Loui- 
siana politics. 

Tiie real embarrassment in the future lies 
with Packard and Pinchback. They believe 
in the color-line, and Pinchback is an unscru- 
pulous, and, with his own people, a very in- 



fluential, politician. The colored people, un- 
fortunately, are very susceptible to such in- 
fluences as his. They are — their best friends 
and most zealous supporters openly confess 
it — incapable of independent political ac- 
tion. They require a leader. This is so true 
that the office of " organizer" is one of the 
most important in the Radical machinery in 
Louisiaua. He is a person sent iuto country 
parishes from New Orleans some weeks or 
months before election, to gather up the col- 
ored vote ; to appoint and hold meetings ; 
to instruct the local leaders, who are mostly 
Iireachers and school-teachers, and to organ- 
ize the party. 

" We had a light colored vote in our par- 
ish," said a Conservative to me ; " but there 
was no intimidation. The organizer came 
up late, and fell sick as soon as he got there, 
and the negroes had no one to drill them 
and tell them what to do." 

Now, Pinchback understands organiza- 
tion. He has at this time a propagandist of 
his A'icws in many parishes, and it is said he 
means to make himself, if he can, master of 
the colored vote. I believe he can not do it ; 
but he can do much mischief. 

It is a grave misfortune for Louisiana that 
in her crisis she has so weak a governor. I 
believe that Governor Kellogg has a sincere 
wisli to do right ; but he has no force of 
character; ho has no influence over those 
who rule with him. Ho lacks the iron grip 
whicli is needed to bring reform. He him- 
self complained to me in New Orleans, after 
the adjournment of the Legislature, that the 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction 
(a colored man) had just appointed two no- 
toriously corrupt men to be president and 
treasurer of the school board of a parish. I 
asked him how he came to permit such a 
wickedness. He replied, " The colored Sen- 
ator Blunt demanded it. Brown, the su- 
perinteudent, weakly gave in to him. I am 
sorry — but what am I to do ?" One listens 
with contempt to such an excuse, which no 
man would make who really commanded his 
administration. By law the superintendent 
appoints; but a governor who was a strong 
man would know how to resist such action. 
The good Kellogg only drifts, and hopes he 
is drifting toward the United States Senate. 
But, so drifting, he fatally impedes reforms ; 
he allows things to be done which irabitter 
the passions of men, and make them hopeless 
of reform ; he really bands together the white 
men, who have all to lose by continued bad 



68 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



government, and all to gain by good, and tlie 
great mass of whom would to-day bo bappy 
and content with good government on any 
terms. 

Many of them, indeed, would vote to make 
General Grant President for life, and Loui- 
siana a province, because, as a very respect- 
able and intelligent man said to me but 
the other day, "lu that case we should at 
least have equal protection, and could ap- 
peal direct to Ctesar for justice, and against 
robbery." It is not pleasaut to hear such, 
words from an American citizen. 

The only sure remedy, I am persuaded, 
lies in the absolute nou-interfereuce of the 
Federal power. If to-day it were known 
that the Federal Government would not in- 
terfere in the affairs of Louisiana on any 
account excex)t for rebellion against the Fed- 
eral Goverument, the influence of those Ee- 
imblicans who sincerely desire good govern- 
ment would be increased a hundred - fold. 
They would be able to extinguish at once 
the power of the colored demagogues ; for the 
negro dares to be politically corrupt only 
because ho profoiindly believes that the Fed- 
eral arm will protect him in his acts ; he has 
always seen it do so. Take away the con- 
stant menace of Federal interference, and the 
whole body of corruptionists will at once 
sink out of sight, as they did in Arkansas. 

Nor do I believe that any serious disorder 
would happen in the State. The good peo- 
ple would know that they could hope to con- 
trol the government by fair and peaceable 
means, and would have its help in control- 
ling the disorderly whites. There is not the 
least disposition to fall into trouble with the 
Federal power. There is no hostility to the 
Union or the Goverument. The negro la- 
borers are too valuable to be abused ; for 
free labor is a very great and universally 
acknowledged success. 

The spirit of Louisiana is not bad; he 
who says it is has, I do not hesitate to as- 
sert, some bad motive. 

There are a few parishes, like Franklin, 
where human life is held cheap, where ruf- 
fians rule, and where one might, without ex- 
aggeration, say that, under the careless sway 
of the Eepublican rulers, outlaws have mas- 
tered society. But even in these parishes, of 
which tliere are but two or three at most, 
no one pretends that murder is practiced 
for political purposes. 

Frauklin, for instance, was the refuge of 
deserters and outlaws during the war ; it is 



thinly populated, contains but few blacks, 
and, I think, from what I have heard from 
both Democrats and Republicans, it has sub- 
stantially no law except that of the pistol 
and knife. " The people are getting very 
tired of it," said a Democrat to me. " Prop- 
erty is unsalable ; nobody goes there ; and 
they would welcome law and order if they 
could get it." 

I said there were perhaps two or three 
such parishes, but I know of only this one. 
Its condition is probably worse than that of 
some of the coal counties of Pennsylvania, 
but not much worse. Neither Warmouth nor 
Kellogg has done any thing to improve it. 

But the great body of the white people 
of the State are good citizens, and they have 
learned a terribly severe lesson of the im- 
portance of justice, peace, and order in the 
last ten years. They have learned to respect 
the rights of the negro, and they and the 
blacks ought to be trusted with self-govern- 
ment. There is ]io other way to reform 
abuses in the State ; and, what is still more 
important, a continuance of the Federal pro- 
tectorate will speedilj' result in making life 
iutolei'ablo even to the Avhite Republicans, 
or, at least, to that part of them who have 
property in the State ; for, as I pointed out 
before, it is the worst class of colored dema- 
gogues who are now coming to the surface 
to take command. 



The agricultural industry of Louisiana di- 
vides itself broadly into two parts — sugar and 
cotton. The upper part of the State is main- 
ly engaged in cotton-culture; thelower,inthe 
production of sugar. But, as in some of the 
northern and western j)arishes stock-raising 
is also practiced, so on the low alluvial lands 
intersected by the Mississippi, the Atchafa- 
laya, and the numerous bayous which lead out 
of these streams, rice is a considerable and 
profitable crop as well as sugar; and latterly 
the small planters begin to set out orange 
orchards, the few orchards now in bearing 
being very profitable. This tree requires 
ten years in this climate to come into full 
bearing, and is liable while young to be cut 
down by frost. It is not a sure crop here, 
is subject to the scale insect, and the orange- 
planter needs to select with some care the 
site of his orchard, and to seek protection 
against the cold north winds of the spring 
season. But the tree bears well, and has 
much less care than it should have ; and the 
crop finds a very ready sale for cash, the 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



69 



orcbardist usually, I bear, selling bis fruit 
on tbe tree, aud at a gross valuation made 
■wbeu tbe oranges are ripening. Tbe flow- 
ers, also, bave a market value. 

A few large sugar-plauters are beginning 
tbe systematic culture of tbe orange ; and 
wbere tbe situation is favorable to tbe tree, 
it nialxcs a very profitable crop. At twelve 
years after plantiug it sbould yield one 



tbousaud dollars au acre, Avitb a 



trilling 



cost for cultivation and care. 

Along tbe river or tbe bayou tbere is usu 
ally a strip of laud from balf a mile to a 
mile deep ; back of tbat come forest aud 
swamp, and beyond tbat, probably, tbe face 
of auotber bayou. Tbe laud is ilat, but falls 
a little from tbe river toward tbe swamp ; 
60 tbat wben a rise of tbe waters comes, tbe 
plantation is overflowed from tbe back first, 
unless, of course, tbe levee in front breaks. 
Many plantations bave a back as well as a 
frout levee, and often you see a pumping 
wbeel aud engine, wbicb are needed to get 
rid of tbe rain-water. Tbey say of Florida 
tbat tbe water is so close to tbe surface tbat 
you may dig down anywbere two feet deep 
aud go a-fisbing ; aud tbese sugar and rice 
lauds are at tbis season not mucb drier. 
Tbe bauks of tbe stream are fringed witb 
live-oaks, and in tbe sbade of tbese tbe plan- 
tation-bouse is usually placed, witb tbe sug- 
ar-bouse near-by, and tbe cottages of tbe la- 
borers beyoud tbat. On some of tbe bayous 
wbicb are quite narrow, tbe plantation lines 
extend on botb sides, aud tbe fields are 
connected witb tbe sugar-bouse by floating 
bridges, wbicb are swung to one side to 
allow a steamboat to pass. Ou tbe Missis- 
sippi tbo bigb levees partly conceal tbe 
buildings, and from tbo deck of a steamboat 
tbe view of roof-lines above tbe levee gives 
tbe landscape a very quaint appearance. 

In many places rice is tbe crop of tbe 
small farmers — men witb one buudred or 
two buudred acres of land. It requires less 
capital tban sugar, and is sufficiently profit- 
able. It depends, of course, on tbe waters 
rising suCQcicntly bigb to flood tbe laud at 
tbe proper time. To accomplisb tbis, flood- 
ing ditcbes are cut, and water is let intbrougb 
tbe levee by simple flood-gates. About Point 
h la Hacbe such ditcbes and gates are found 
at intervals of every few buudred feet for 
miles of tbo river-frout. In a good season 
tbe yield, I am told, is from twelve to fifteen 
barrels per acre, wbicb ougbt to bring five 
dollars per barrel. Tbe expense is about 



twenty dollars per acre, wbicb includes tak- 
ing off" tbe crop. In some parts tbe people 
continue to cut it witb a sickle, and I bave 
seen it tbresbed out by driving borses over 
it in a large circle. But reapers and steam- 
tbresbers are coming into use, aud tbe rice 
country bas always mills to wbicb tbe farm- 
ers take tbeir rice to get it bulled. In tbe 
rice -fields tbe colored laborer receives one 
dollar a day, and feeds bimself 

In some places, as on tbe Atcbafalaya and 
about Grand Lake, live-oak timber is cut 
aud sbipped to different parts of tbe world. 
One of tbe important petty industries of 
Lower Louisiana is tbe collection of tbe 
moss wbicb bangs in long festoons from all 
tbe trees, iiarticularly from tbe oak. Ne- 
groes and wbite men alike devote tbem- 
selves to tbis, aud tbe quantity brougbt to 
New Orleans annually is quite large. On 
tbe sugar-plantations, wben fire-wood is cut 
tbe moss is usually tbe perquisite of tbe col- 
ored men, aud tbey understand bow to pre- 
pare it for market, and make some jpocket- 
money in tbis way. 

Sugar, bowever, is tbe main crop of Soutb- 
ern Louisiana. Various causes make it just 
now a precarious crop; and sugar- planta- 
tions in some of tbe best locations in tbe 
State could be bougbt in tbe spring of 1875 
for less money tban tbe macbinery of tbe 
sugar-bouses cost. I was surprised to find 
tbat a large number of Nortbern and Nortb- 
western men bave come down liere since 
tbe war, and bougbt sugar -estates. Some 
of tbese manage tbeir plantations witb tbe 
belp of overseers, aud live bere only in tbe 
winter; others manage tbeir owu places. As 
you pass up a bayou on tbe steamboat, tbe 
whitewashed cottages and neater culture 
generally tell you tbat bere a Nortbern man 
has settled witb capital enough to carry on 
bis business to advantage. Many of tbo 
plantations are still in tbe hands of the old 
planters, aud often these bave a dilapidated 
look, wbicb shows tbat tbeir owucrs are in 
embarrassed circumstances. 

Tbe bad condition of tbe levees has brougbt 
serious loss to many planters, especially in 
the Atcbafalaya and Tecbe country; aud 
there is a general complaint of bigb taxa- 
tion aud wasteful expenditure of public 
money. 

The planters, without exception, so far as 
I have heard them speak, are tborougbly sat- 
isfied with the colored i^au as a laborer. I 
do not mean to say that they have no fault 



70 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



to fiud ; but tliey say that the negroes are 
orderly, docile, faithful to their engagements, 
steady laborers in the field, readily submit- 
ting to directions and instructions, and easi- 
ly managed and made contented. This ap- 
plies to cotton as well as sugar planters, and 
all is summed up in tbe phrase I most fre- 
quently heard used, " We have the best la- 
boring class in the world." 

Their faults are mainly of carelessness 
■with such property as mules and farming-im- 
jilcmeuts, and killing cattle and hogs. As 
to the first, several planters told me they 
had found it useful to give the charge of 
animals entirely to a special person, who fed 
and cared for them. But it appears to make 
no difference whether the mules belong to 
the planter or to the laborer ; the latter is 
as conscientiously careless of his own as of 
another's property. It is part of the heed- 
lessness bred of slavery, and it will take 
time to be bred out, as it was bred in. 

As to killing cattle and hogs, this is a cus- 
tom which arises, in part, out of a slovenly 
way of letting animals run half wild in the 
woods without that care which marks spe- 
cial ownership. It is a matter which the 
planters are meeting gradually by letting 
the laborers keep stock of their own, and 
thus making it to their interest to put down 
the indiscriminate theft. A Northern man, 
a j)lauter, told me that he had brought from 
the North thirty-four cows, and all had been 
killed but two, which, for safety, he now 
kept within the door-yard of his dwelling. 
I asked if his laborers were generally dis- 
honest, and he replied emphatically, no ; he 
would trust any one of them, he said, with 
ten thousand dollars to carry to town, with- 
out fear of loss ; he had never missed any 
articles from his house, where he had colored 
servants, and where the women from the 
quarters often came. But he could keep 
chickens and turkeys only with the utmost 
diificulty and care ; and as for cows and hogs, 
it was entirely out of the question. 

The laborers on the sugar-plantations re- 
ceive from thirteen to fifteen dollars i^er 
month; a cottage, usuallj^ of two rooms, and 
a garden patch near it ; a ration of pork and 
corn -meal, rather more than enough for a 
hearty man; and a corn patch, which the 
laborer cultivates for himself on Saturday 
afternoon with the planter's teams. About 
their cottages they can keep chickens and 
pigs, if they like ; and often they have a 
horse, a cow, and even an old carriage of 



some kind, in which they drive out on Sun- 
day with great satisfaction, crowding in wife 
and children. 

The planter usually has on his place a 
store where necessaries and luxuries are sold? 
and among the former whisky is reckoned, 
I am sorry to say. They tell me the blacks 
will have it, and it is better to sell it in mod- 
eration on the place than to compel them to 
go to a distance for it. As the sugar-planta- 
tions are all situated upon navigable streams, 
they are exposed to a serious nuisance in 
the shape of peddling boats, which sail up 
and down with a license from the State to 
sell various matters, among which whisky 
is iirominent. These anchor oi)posite a plan- 
tation for a day or two, and carry away, not 
only all the spare cash, but chickens and 
other " truck " which the colored people may 
have raised. 

The negro is fond of credit. Few of them, 
I find, aie sufficiently forehanded to deal for 
cash. They have credit at the store ; and 
it is the planter's object to so manage the 
laborer's account that he shall have a pretty 
little sum at Christmas, which he thereupon 
mostly spends duriug Christmas-week with 
very great satisfaction. If he has been al- 
lowed to draw out all of his account before- 
hand he is dissatisfied, and likes to remove, 
thinking that he has not done well — no 
matter how clearly he is shown that he was 
wasteful during the year. Only a very few 
lay by money ; but occasionally a negro was 
pointed out to me who had several hundred 
dollars ahead. 

One thing greatly j)leased me : the black 
man pays his debts. All the petty shop- 
keej)ers, of whom the country is full, are 
ready to give credit to the negroes. It was 
a question I asked very often, and always 
received the same reply, " They always pay 
up." Among the rice-planters, where the 
blacks work by the day, they frequently hire 
cottages, and the owner of some of these told 
me he would rather have negroes than whites 
for tenants, because they paid more prompt- 
ly. A country store -keeper said to me, 
" Ninety per cent, of my sales are tocolored 
people, and ninety per cent, of my bad debts 
are owed by whites." 

I had read somewhere in the North a com- 
plaint that the planters refused to sell land 
to the negroes. The case I found stands 
thus : In the sugar country the negro does 
not aim to buy twenty or forty acres, and 
plant cane for himself. He would need to 



LOUISIANA IN APEIL, 1875. 



71 



have the caue ground; and the business is 
too hurried at the close of the season to get 
this done with certainty and at the proper 
time. But they like to own au acre or two, 
on which they jdace a cabin ; and this home- 
stead makes them contented. Unluckily, 
they do not improve their places ; iuvariably 
I have found them in the roughest and most 
disorderly condition. Now, naturally, no 
man likes to sell a corner of his estate to 
such purchasers; and the planters very just- 
ly and very generally refuse to sell such lit- 
tle patches to negroes. Some would divide 
their estates into hundred- acre tracts, but 
there are few purchasers for such parcels. 
Many others hold on to their large estates, 
even when they have not capital enough to 
work them ; and I have seen some planta- 
tions which were not worked at all, but on 
which the owners paid the taxes, and waited 
for better times. For my part, I do not much 
blame them. Nobody, except a land-specu- 
lator, likes to sell land ; especially where it 
has been his home. And these people are 
not land-speculators. 

It is not uncommon, however, for a spec- 
ulator to buy a hundred acres near a town, 
and divide it into two-acre tracts, which are 
readily sold to colored people at a great ad- 
vance. I have seen several such villages, 
and certainly the regular rows of neatly 
whitewashed cabins on the plantation look, 
and arc, far more comfortable. 

In the cotton country it is not very un- 
common to find negroes owning twenty or 
forty acres ; and tliey can always buy land 
if they want to. The great majority, how- 
ever, as yet, prefer to cultivate the laud on 
shares, either furnishing their own teams or 
only their labor; and in the rich Louisiana 
bottoms they make handsome returns in this 
way. 

The sugar -plan tor lies, in all countries 
where he is found, under a practical disad- 
vantage, because ho combines two callings 
very ditferent in their nature — he is both a 

farmer and a nianufiicturer. I found this 

t 
recognized in the Sandwicli Islands, where 

one or two of the shrewdest planters have 
tried the experiment of inducing the natives 
to raise cane and bring it to their mills to 
t)o ground. In this way the risk of the crop 
is divided; and this is so great that a large 
sugar-planter maybe fatally embarrassed by 
the loss of a single crop, or by a trilling fall 
in the price of sugar. There are undoubt- 
edly some difficulties in the way of dividing 



the business ; but in several of the sugar 
counties of Louisiana jilanters are making 
the attempt to turn the mere raising of cane 
over to laborers and small farmers, and with 
a promise of success. 

In Plaquemine, Mr. Dymond, of New York, 
has begun to buy caue and grind it at his 
mill, and with profit to himself and to those 
who raise the cane. One farmer told me 
that the experiment last year, which he made 
only because his own sugar-house had burned 
down, was so far successful that this year 
he was putting a part of his laud in rice, aud 
over two hundred acres in cane. He sold 
last year one hundred and seventy-five acres 
of cane for five dollars a ton — he cutting it, 
aud loading it on the barge which carried 
it to the mill; aud he thought the returns 
satisfactory. 

In Terre Bonne I found an intelligent 
young planter, a Louisianiau, who was try- 
ing adifiVrent i^lau, aud, as he thought, with 
the promise of success. He has made a con- 
tract for five years with his laborers, under 
which they take of him on an average ten 
acres per hand, he furnishing seed-cane, cane 
land, houses, fire- wood, fences, and land for a 
corn patcli ; they supplying teams, tools, la- 
bor, aud feeding themselves, and taking half 
the crop. The men work in squads of half 
a dozen. "When the cane is ready to cut, the 
planter takes charge, and uses all the teams 
and men for the common purpose of getting 
the cane in and the sugar made. At this time 
also he hires extra hands, and the tenants 
pay half the cost of these. The planter ad- 
vances all the money needed, and, in fact, 
makes advances of food and other supplies 
also to the tenants, which is the evil custom 
of the country. The cost of taking the cane 
from the field and turning it into sugar is 
about twenty dollars an acre. 

Under this system this planter told mo 
that the men worked more zealously than 
ever before. He had even sold them teams 
on a credit of three years ; and the result of 
the first year was that the tenants lived, and 
paid one-third the cost of their teams; and 
of eleven squads, the members of seven came 
out at the close of the season one hundred 
dollars per man ahead. As for himself, he 
said he had lost money for several years ; but 
last year he made money, and he ^attribu- 
ted it largely to the new system. I ought 
to add that most of his tenants were white 
men, but a squad of colored men did as well 
and made as much money as any of the others. 



72 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



I fouud a Soutliern man in charge as su- 
perintendent of a raili'oad wliicli employs a 
large colored force as track layers and mend- 
ers, etc. The men receive one dollar and 
fifty-seven cents a day, and pay sixty cents 
a day to their foreman, a colored man also, 
for food. They are " the very best of labor- 
ers, always willing, zealous, and faithful, and 
will work very hard and in the most disa- 
greeable labor for any one who treats them 
well." So said the superintendent. One 
large gang was pointed out to me, which 
for some years had labored iu the swamps 
through which a part of the road runs. 
They composed a little independent commu- 
nity, having a justice of the peace of their 
own, who maintains order and decides dis- 
imtes. 

Where sugar -planters keep no store for 
their hands, it is customary to pay the hands 
half their wages at the end of the month and 
the balance at the close of the year ; and I 
imagine those who make advances in goods 
try to keej) their men to about the same limit. 

Very few cotton-planters in Louisiana pay 
wages. The colored man prefers to take 
the laud on shares, and it is by far the best 
way. Where they rent land in the rich 
bottoms, they pay from six to ten dollars 
per acre, or, which is more usual, eighty 
pounds of clean cotton. In some cases the 
planter furnishes land, house, fuel, a corn 
patch, teams, tools, and feed for the animals, 
and takes half the crop. If the colored 
tenant wants to undertake corn as well as 
cotton, that, too, is planted at halves. They 
usually work in squads, and undertake about 
fifteen acres of cotton and ten of corn to the 
hand. 

Cotton will average three-quarters of a 
bale to the acre, and I judge that the labor- 
er with a fair crop may live through the 
year, and have one hundred and fifty dollars 
in cash at the close of the season, neither he 
nor his family having sufi"ered for any thing 
in the mean time. The returns are very sat- 
isfactory to the laborer, and Northern farm- 
ers, who save as well as work, could easily 
grow rich on the Mississippi and Eed Kiver 
bottom-lands. 

Every body tells me that the colored men 
save but little. In one cottou-parish a Re- 
publican who has taken great interest in the 
welfare of the negroes said, in answer to my 
question, "They are not worth a dollar a 
head of the population to-day." " That man 
had one hundred and fifty doUars due him 



last Christmas for his cotton," said another 
planter to me : " he spent it all in ten days, 
and bought the greatest lot of trash you ever 
saw ; but he and his wife and children were 
satisfied and happy, and when I reproached 
him, he said, ' What's the use of living if 
a man can't have the good of his labor V " 

New Orleans has a considerable number 
of colored mechanics, who are spoken of as 
skillful and competent men. Elsewhere iu 
the State I have seen colored men workinsr 
as masons and carpenters, and occasionally 
shoe-makers, and they are skillful black- 
smiths. I am told, iu the towns a consider- 
able proportion of the colored people own 
the houses iu which they live, and they all 
have a strong desire, as I have said, to own 
small lots of land. But in a j)arish which 
has a negro population of over twelve thou- 
sand, a planter who has taken much interest 
iu the colored people told me he knew not 
more than twenty men who owned farms, 
and some of these he thought would not 
make their payrnents on the price, by reason 
of improvidence. This was in the cotton 
country, where the colored people can read- 
ily buy laud, and at a reasonable rate. 

The women do not regularly work in the 
fields. They receive from eight dollars to 
ten dollars a month as field-hands, and in 
the cotton -picking time women and chil- 
dren turn iu to this work. In the sugar coun- 
try, too, the planters employ women iu the 
fields at certain seasons. If the colored la- 
borer is forehanded, he prefers that his wife 
shall not work iu the field. 

Of schools most of the parishes have a suf- 
ficient number, and the colored people are 
generally better supplied than the whites 
with free schools. This arises in part from 
the fact that school-teachers are made use 
of as politicians. 

The notion that the negro race is dying 
out is absurd, and one never heai's it men- 
tioned here. The whole country is full of 
hearty, shiny little pickaninnies, fat, quiet, 
generally nicely dressed ; and in the towns 
and villages the larger children look very 
neat and happy as they go to and from school 
or Sunday-school. 

The colored people are almost universally, 
I am told, anxious to send their children to 
school, and in my conversation with them 
the most frequent complaint I heard was 
of the mismanagement or inefficiency of 
schools. I never heard any complaint of a 
lack of schools, though some outlying par- 



LOUISIANA IN APRIL, 1875. 



73 



islies are not well supplied. lu a countrj^ 
parish on a Sunday, I fell into conversation 
with three colored men whom I met in my 
walk. One had his little children with him. 
He complained that the school was not kept 
open — " not more than one day in the week. 
It was a shame, when they had a good school- 
house ; but the teacher was of no account." 
I said they ought to cure that by choosing 
good officers at elections, and one replied 
that they always got cheated. The Eepub- 
lican office-holders were as bad as Conserv- 
atives, and he would just as soon trust one 
as the other. "And if we put our own color 
in, somebody comes along and shoves money 
in their iiockets, and makes them forget their 
own xieople." 

As to churches, in the cotton country the 
colored people are mostly either Methodists 
or Baptists, and they have their own church- 
es and preachers of their own color. The 
meeting is a curiosity. The iireacher is al- 
most always so far illiterate that he uses 
large words in a wrong sense ; but he free- 
ly denounces the sins of the congregation. 
Then come screams, violent contortions, 
jumping, dancing, and shouting — but not 
more violent or ghastly than I have seen in 
Western camp-meetings among white i)eo- 
ple, in my younger days, I must own. 

You hear it commonly said that the preach- 
ers are not good men, and do not live up to 
their calling, but I doubt it. They arc poli- 
ticians — as i^reachers, lawyers, and doctors 
are commonly among white men. But even 
though the form which Christianity takes 
among these people is rejiugnant to my cold- 
er nature, I found no upright, thoughtful 
planter who did not acknowledge that the 
Church is a restraining influence upon them ; 
and in one case where I put tlio question the 
planter told mo that he had noticed that 
almost all the crime, lawsuits, and troubles 
generally, in his parish, which came before 
the courts, originated on those plantations 
where there was no meeting-house. "As 
for me," he said, "I thjnk it an economy 
to support both church and Sunday-school 
among the colored people on my planta- 
tions." In Southern Louisiana a large part 
of the colored population are Catholics, and 
have not separate churches. 



The colored people are the main working 
force of the State. It is not fair to say that 
they are the only workers, as is sometimes 
rashly asserted, for there is a considerable 
population of white farmers scattered over 
the State. In the Acadian country these 
people, who are called " Cadians," are indus- 
trious and prosperous. They speak French, 
and retain many of their old French customs. 
They live a good deal among themselves, 
and do not even care to trade with the Amer- 
icans, whom, though they have occupied the 
country ever since the acquisition of Louisi- 
ana, the Acadian still regards as interlopers. 
In other parts of the State there is a popu- 
lation of white farmers who cultivate the 
thin uplands. They have been much neg- 
lected, and are not very highly thought of by 
their neighbors in the lowlands. 

To conclude, the industrial ^irospects of 
the colored people in Louisiana are satisfac- ^ 
torj-. They work, and they receive a fair 
and even handsome return for their labor ; 
and working so largely on shares, they have 
incentives to faithful work which day -la- 
borers in the North are often witliout. Lou- 
isiana is an extraordinarily rich State ; mill- 
ions of acres of the most fertile soil lie 
uncultivated, and may be obtained at a 
price so low that an industrious man ma.y 
pay for a farm from the savings of two 
cotton crops. These lands are open to the 
colored people, and when time and a long- 
er experience of liberty have taught them 
self-denial, economy, and business habits, 
they will more largely become independent 
farmers. 

It is my belief that they ought now to be 
finally — in this State — left to themselves, so 
far as the jtolitical interference of the Fed- 
eral Government is concerned. They know 
how to help themselves, and it is, in the 
opinion of the best Republicans I met in the 
State, a danger to social order that the ne- 
groes, preyed upon as they are by dema- 
gogues of both colors, shall any longer have 
cause to believe that the Federal power 
stands behind them to protect them against 
the results of their misconduct, or to main- 
tain them in places for which tbey are, by 
lack of education and of training and expe- 
rience, unfit. 



MISSISSIPPI m MAY, 1875. 



Mississippi is, politically, in a melaucholy 
couditiou. 

The State is uatnrally fertile and rich; 
the people yvovk ; the means of prosperity 
and content are at hand. Nor can it be said 
that there is actual disorder or violence. 
Mississippi is still, even more than Arkan- 
sas, a frontier State, -n-ith frontier habits. 
Men, and even boys of fourteen, go about 
with pistols in their pockets, and murder is 
not a crime if the murderer can " get a 
continuance" — that is to say, if he is not 
lynched, and his lawyer succeeds in de- 
laying his trial. But, except in Yicksburg 
last year, there has been in two or three 
years but little political violence and mur- 
der iu the State. The evil passious which 
raged after the war, and continued too long, 
are subsiding ; the State debt is trifling ; the 
schools are iu a tolerably good condition ; 
the Civil-rights Act is submitted to ; there 
has been little occasion for the interference 
of the Federal Government under the En- 
forcement acts, except at Vicksburg, for at 
least eighteen months or two years ; the 
State is in the main at peace. ■ 

And yet it is neither prosperous nor hap- 
py. It is the prey of two political factious 
of the worst type, who, on both sides, aim to 
create and maintain excitement, bitterness, 
suspicious, fears, and hatred. On the one 
side stands an unscrupulous and. deter- 
mined band of Democratic politicians of the 
worst kiud — the pistol and bowie-knife 
stripe, namely — who, in newspapers and by 
their daily conversation, excite the white 
Democrats who listen to them to unreason- 
ing and unreasonable fury, and at the same 
time alarm the timid negroes and bind them 
together. Ai-rayed against these Democrats 
stands another equally unscrupulous band 
of Republican politicians, with Governor 
Ames at their head, who have "captured" 
the colored vote, and mean to hold power 
and plunder by its means. 

Between these contending factions stand 



the mass of honest Republicans and honest 
Democrats, moderate and conservative, but 
unable, it seems, to control the bad elements ; 
unable, at any rate, to unite and take con- 
trol into their own hands. 

Here are two examples which do not bad- 
ly illustrate the state of afi'airs in Missis- 
sippi. \ 

Kuowing that I am interested in schools, ^\^ 
some one iu New Orleans sent me a letter 
of introduction to the State Superintendent 
of Public Instruction here — a colored man 
named Cardozo. On asking for him I found 
he had gone to Vicksburg "to look after an 
indictment " found against him ; and when 
I myself went there, I discovered that Car- 
dozo was not merely indicted, but, as an in- 
dignant Republican told me, "shingled all 
over with indictments" for embezzlement 
and fraud, and likely, if justice is done, pres- 
ently to be sent to State-prison. "What a love- 
ly and improving sight for the children of 
the State, white and black ! 

Yet this man is one of Governor Ames's 
confidential and influential advisers. 

Here is the other side. The postmaster, 
ex-Senator Pease, while I was in Vicksburg, 
was stopped iu the street by a person who, 
I was assured, is " one of the most respecta- 
ble citizens " of the place, who said to him 
in a loud voice, "I hear, sir, by God, that 
you are going to aiipoiut a damned nigger 
to be a clerk iu your post-office !" Pease re- 
plied that he certainly was going to appoint^ 
a colored man to a clerkship. "Then, sir, 
I tell you it's a damned outrage, and this 
community won't stand it, sir!" said this 
"most respectable citizen" in a blustering 
tone. Pease replied, " You will have to 
stand it," which is perfectly true. And as 
they have a colored sheriff already in Vicks- 
burg, and colored officials in many counties, 
this bluster seems to be as foolish as it is 
wicked. At the same time, a hack -driver 
was furiously driving his hack up and down 
the main business street, shoutiug, "Pease is 



MISSI^IPPI IN MAY, 1875. 



to 



going to put a nigger iu the post-office!" 
Now, see wliat follows. The next day's 
Vicksburg Herald, the Democratic organ, re- 
marks : 

"Pease puts Milton Coates at the general delivery 
of the post-office as an insult to our people. He says 
the people ' must stand it.' They may not stand even 
Pease very long. Our people have a rather summary 
wayof disposing of men and measures sometimes." 

And another article in the same journal 

says: 

"Pease was remonstrated with yesterday upon the 
assignment of a negro to the ladies' window. A gen- 
tleman modestly suggested that the men of Vicljsburg 
would not submit to have a negro assigned to the 
duty of waiting on their wives and daughters at the 
post-office, when the insolent scoundrel replied, 'They 
will have to stand it !' The appointment is a deliber- 
ate insult to the ladies of this city, and the alleged 
Jersey school-house burner may find that he is not 
quite so potent as he imagines. He may tind that he 
has made a blunder, and he may yet live to realize 
that a blunder is worse than a crime. He may con- 
vert the post-office into anything but a bed of roses." 

The mayor and police of Vicksburg, who 
are Democrats, took no notice of the disor- 
derly hack-driver, whom they ought to have 
summarily arrested. The insulting words 
of the "respectable citizen" are approved 
by a considerable part of the Democratic 
citizens, and those the most prominent poli- 
ticians. The colored man whom Mr. Pease 
has made clerk iu the post-office is a young 
man of education, acknowledged integrity, 
and quiet, gentlemanly demeanor, whom sev- 
eral Democrats ]iraised to me. The hack- 
driver who objected to him never objects to 
taking a fare from a negro, and a citizen of 
Vicksburg told me he had seen him repeat- 
edly driving negro prostitutes about the 
town. The "mo.st resiiectable citizen" is 
agent for a steamboat line, daily sells tick- 
ets to colored people, and never refuses their 
money. The whole afi'air would be a farce, 
if it were not so likely to become a tragedy. 

Mississippi has a colored majority in its 
voting population of probably liftecn thou- 
sand, and possibly twenty thousand. To 
these must be added about nine thousand or 
ten thousand white Republicans, of whom 
at least two-thirds are natives of the State. 
About five thousand negroes arc counted on 
to vote the Democratic ticket. 

The Ames faction in the Re]niblican party 
contains but a small part of the white Re- 
publicans — a majority of the petty office- 
holders and the camp-followers ; but it con- 
trols the colored vote. In the anti-Ames 
wing of the Republican party, I found a 
number of men, Northern and Southern, who 
have a substantial interest in the State ; who 



are men of culture, upright, wise, and good 
citizens in the best sense of the phrase ; such 
men as Judge Tarbell, of the Supreme Court ; 
Judge Luke Lea ; Mr. Miisgrove, late State 
Auditor; General M'Kee, a member of Con- 
gress ; Judge Hill, of the United States Cir- 
cuit Cotirt ; G. W. Wells, United States Dis- 
trict Attorney for the Northern District ; aud 
many others. 

The large majority of the Democratic par- 
ty also is composed of men of moderate and 
conservative views, who would prefer peace, 
harmony, and good government, but who are 
influenced to a large degree by a small but 
fierce band of fire-eaters whose head-quar- 
ters are at Vicksburg, and who control a 
number of in-esses in different parts of the 
State, and keep the people in a ferment by 
their violent language and their exaggera- 
tions of evils which are great enough iu 
fact, but not nearly so great as they pre- 
tend, nor by any means entirely blamablo 
upon the Republicans. Through the appeals 
of these persons the people of Mississippi 
have been led to believe themselves outraged 
and oppressed in some ways iu which they 
are not ; partisan bitterness has been main- 
tained to a degree which leads the ignorant 
Democrat to unite iu the same denunciation 
honest and dishonest Republicans ; and so 
intense is the feeling kept up that the mate- 
rial interests of the State sutler by reason of 
it — confidence is shaken, values are depress- 
ed, and even industry is disturbed. Mean- 
time these Democratic demagogues strive 
to lead the people awaj-from the legitimate 
and natural means by which they could rid 
themselves of corrnpt rulers and establish a 
sound government, based upon the union of 
the best men of both parties. 

That there have been wastefulness and cor- 
ruption in the government of Mississippi 
there is no doubt. I am so weary of official 
grand and petit larceny that I do not mean 
to go at any length into Mississippi finances. 
It is enough to say that the State debt is 
trifling; there have been no great railroad 
swindles; a constitutional provision wisely 
forbids the loau of the State credit. But 
there has been gross financial corruption iu 
many counties; officers with high salaries 
have been needlessly multiplied ; there have 
been notorious jobs, such as the State print- 
ing ; and the ruling powers, the Ames Re- 
publicans, have unscrupulously used the ig- 
norance and greed of the negroes to help 
them iu their x^olitical schemes. Control- 



76 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



ling tlie negro vote, and using it as a solid 
mass, they have put into such ofifices as coun- 
ty supervisors and treasurers, as well as into 
the Legislature, negroes who were often not 
only unable to read and write, but who were 
notoriously corrupt and corrupting dema- 
gogues. For instance, the late treasurer of 
Hinds County, in which the State capital 
lies, was a'negro who could neither read nor 
write, and who was killed by another negro 
a few weeks ago for a disgraceful intrigue. 
In the last Legislature were several negroes 
who could neither read nor write. It has 
happened that the members of a grand jury 
were totally illiterate. A city government 
was to be elected last August in Vicksburg, 
and the Republicans nominated for mayor a 
white man at the time under indictment for 
twenty-three offenses, and for aldermen sev- 
en colored men, most of them of low charac- 
ter, and one white man who could neither 
read nor write, the keeper of a low grog- 
gery. This ticket was denounced by Gen- 
eral M'Kee, Republican member of Congress, 
in a public sjieech, and, with the help of the 
Republicans, was beaten. Of the present 
supervisors of Warren County (Vicksburg), 
the president and two others can not read. 
It is a notorious fact that Governor Ames 
has appointed to judicial places men igno- 
rant of law, and that he has used his appoint- 
ing power to shield criminals, who were his 
adherents, and to corru^it the judiciary of 
the State. 

These are serious matters ; but, on the 
other hand, it must be said that the Demo- 
cratic demagogues have repeatedly urged the 
negroes to nominate only colored men for 
office. They say they " would rather have 
a Mississippi nigger than a cariiet-bagger ;" 
and, moreover, in the notable cases of cor- 
ruption, both in State aud counties. Demo- 
crats have in many cases shared the plun- 
der, and in some have got up the scheme. 
Now, on this head the Democratic leaders 
are silent. They cry out that the State is 
ruined, which is not true ; but they have 
themselves helped to rob it, and it is at least 
a doubtful question whether, if some of those 
who so loudly denounce corruption had pow- 
er, they would make an honest government. 

There is, for instance, a loud outcry about 
the enormous debt of Vicksburg ; but of the 
money spent for street improvements, Dem- 
ocratic contractors got the most ; and the 
money given to railroads was voted by Dem- 
ocrats and Republicans alike. 



Such men as Barksdale, Wharton, Lamar, 
and hundreds of other prominent Democrats, 
have clean hands and are men of honor; 
but there is an undoubted propensity to 
corruption among some Democratic as well 
as among Republican leaders. For instance, 
Vicksburg has been, siuce August, under 
Democratic rule; but the expenses , of the . 
city government, I am told, have increased, 
and order is not as well maintained under 
Democratic rule as formerly. 

Nor, if the Democratic leaders were fair, 
would they omit to tell their people that 
the expenses of State and county govern- 
ments have necessarily increased, for the 
colored people being free give business to 
the courts and the officers and institutions 
of justice; they must have schools; and in 
other ways the cost of government is in-, 
creased. That a very large balance of waste 
and theft aud high taxation remains, is per- 
fectly true, aud of that all may rightfully 
complain, as well as of other and graver 
wrongs which I have mentioned above. 

It is a complaint, also, of the Democrats 
that their opponents have, for corrupt pur- 
poses, maintained the color-line in politics. 
It is true that the Ames men cultivate the ne- 
gro vote by corrupt means; but it is also true 
that the Democrats have helped them. In 
Arkansas aud Louisiana, I do not remember 
having once heard of the negro except as a 
part of the body politic, ignorant, to be sure, 
but a good worker, and, as was often said 
to me by Democrats, " not to be blamed that 
he went wrong under bad advice." But in 
Mississippi the commonest topic of discus- 
sion is the '* damned nigger." A dozen 
times, at least, prominent Democrats told me 
he was a peculiar being, not possessing the 
virtues of the Caucasian race, and not fit- 
ted by nature to vote, or to sit on jury, or to 
bear witness — a creature admirably fitted 
to make cotton, and so on. I have heard 
such discussions going on in the presence of 
colored men, who naturally listened with all 
the ears they had. 

Now, the negro is not an idiot. He would 
be if he voted for and with men who ha- 
bitually call him a "nigger," and often a 
" damned nigger," and who openly assert 
his incapacity by nature to perform the 
functions of a citizen. When the " most re- 
spectable citizen in Vicksburg" blustered 
about the postmaster appointing a " damned 
nigger," he was heard by at least twenty- 
five colored men and women. Yet, in that 



/ 



mSSISSIPPI IX MAY, 1875. 



very tovrn leading Democrats groan about 
the impossibility of breakiug tlie color-line. 
One would bave a contempt for sucb politi- 
cians Tvere not their course a constant in- 
jury to the State in -which they are so fool- 
ishly noisy, and in ■which the quiet, sensi- 
ble, and orderly people seem to have almost 
entirely resigned the power and supremacy 
which belong to them. 

Tlie thing which was ofteuest said to me 
in Mississippi by Democratic politicians was 
this : " Our only hope is in the Democratic 
success in the nest Federal election. The 
Democratic successes last fall gave us our 
first gleam of light." But when I asked 
how a Democratic administration conld help 
them, the reply was, " Because then we can 
disorganize the colored vote. They will not 
vote without white leaders to organize 
them." And when I asked one of the white 
leaders of the "white-liue" movement, whose 
object is to draw the color-line strictly, how 
he conld hope to get all the white people, 
with their strongly diverging views, into his 
movement, his reply was, " We'll make it too 
damned hot for them to stay out." 

Kow, to me this does not look like the 
American way of carrying an election. It 
is a method of bluster and bullying and 
force. Tlio honest Eopubl leans whom I 
asked whether the white -line movement 
could possibly draw in all the white voters, 
all replied in the affirmative. It would si- 
lence opposition at any rate, they said. 

At present there is vigorous opposition to 
the " white-line" movement among the more 
sensible Democrats. The party policy is to 
be decided in a meeting of a State commit- 
tee on the 17th of May, and tlie opponents 
of the "white line" profess to be confident 
that they can defeat the extremists.* But 
in the mean time they do not attack the cor- 
ruptionists and. extremists in their party, 
and, what seems to be more deplorable and 
fatal still, they bave nothing to say against 

* Since this was written, Colonel Lamar, in the Dem- 
ocratic State Convention, brought forward and carried 
a platform denouncing the color-line as an injury to 
the State ; and thus the "white-liners" have failed to 
carry their point. During the canvass going on as I 
write this note, several political meetings have ended 
in disturbance and riot; the canvass is probably the 
most exciting the State has experienced for some 
years; Governor Ames has called for Federal inter- 
ference: but ex -Senator Pease, above mentioned, a 
radical Republican, has telegraphed to the President 
that a posse of citizens can be got in any county to 
keep order, and that Federal interference would be 
an injury rather than a help. I have left my letters 
unchanged ; they give my impressions in May, 1S75. 



the brutal intolerance displayed by Demo- 
cratic demagogues, either toward colored 
men or toward the honest white Republic- 
ans. All Northern men are united in one 
general and fierce condemnation as " carpet- 
baggers." But many of these men thus con- 
demned and held up to hatred have lived in 
the State since 1865-'66; they are men of 
means, and have all their means invested in 
the State ; many of them are large iilanters ; 
against the honesty and high character of 
many of them no one can say a word. It is 
charged that some of these hold ofiice ; but 
why should they not ? They are citizens of 
the State in every sense of the word, and 
• worthy, capable men, whom no one charges 
with peculation or oppression. They are as 
strongly opposed to the misrule and corrup- 
tion of Governor Ames and his faction as the 
Democrats themselves. 

Onlj' a little wisdom on the jiart of the 
Democrats would lead them to conciliate 
these men, to win them over to co-operate 
with them. But nothing of the kind is 
done. They are sneered at as " carpet-bag- 
gers," and made to feel that the Democratic 
leaders will have nothing to do with them. 
So, too, with Southern men who have chosen 
to join the Republican party ; they are at 
once denounced as " vile renegades," entire- 
ly regardless of their actual character. Thus 
Judge Niles, who represented a Mississippi 
district in the last Congress, is habitually 
spoken of as " that renegade Niles." Now, 
Mr. Niles is a man of singular purity of char- 
acter, a quiet scholar, an old resident of the 
State. No Democrat pretends that he is dis- 
honest, or that he tolerates corruption. But 
he is a Republican, therefore a "vile rene- 
gade," not fit for the society of decent men. 

The same course is pursued toward the 
colored voters. They have among them some 
— a few — men of education and honest de- 
sires for good government. But these are 
denounced in common with the whole herd 
of ignorant and easily corruptible black vot- 
ers, who are the prey of designing and un- 
scrupulous white politicians. 

On the other hand, a man ceases to be 
a carpet - bagger the moment he becomes a 
Democrat. For instance, a former sheriff of 
Warren County, then a Republican, a North- 
ern man, has recently become a Democrat, 
and is at once made a " respectable citizen." 
Yet it is notorious that he came to the State 
poor, has been an office-holder, is now worth 
over one hundred fhousand dollars, and does 



78 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



not own a dollar's wortU of property iu the 
State. He keeps liis means in bonds and 
other securities, and, it is said, pays no taxes 
la Mississippi. But tbe Democrats do not 
hesitate to accept him, wliile tbey cry out 
"carpet-bagger" agaiust men who have in- 
vested all their means in the State, and are 
large tax-payers. 

Now, " you can't catch flies with vinegar." 
The natural result of this stupid iutolerauce 
among Democratic leaders is that honest Re- 
publicans are driven to, and kept in, the Re- 
publican ranks. They have no other place. 
They must either remain silent, or vote the 
Eepublican ticket. It is not an exaggera- 
tion to say that the unruly part of the Dem- 
ocrats of Mississippi themselves keep up tbe 
color-line of which they so bitterly complain. 
It is their folly and ignorance which mass 
the negroes, and fling them into tbe bands 
of Ames, and make tlie colored voters what 
they really are — a real danger to tbe State. 
This folly goes on in tbe face of tbe fact that 
the negroes have a numerical m.njority in 
the State, and that without intimidation or 
conciliation it would seem impossible for a 
"white-line" party to obtain political con- 
trol of tlio State. 

Lest I should give you a false impression 
of Mississippi, I must tell you that there is 
no wish or hope among her politicians or 
people for the least trouble with the Fed- 
eral Government, no expectation or desire 
for the re-enslavement of the blacks, or tbe 
change of any constitutional amendment; 
not the least wish for a " new rebellion." 
No one can truthfully say the reverse of this. 
Tbe disease which afflicts society and poli- 
tics in Mississippi, and which threatens se- 
rious eft'ects, is of a diftereut nature eutirely. 
The honest and sensible men have to too 
great an extent abandoned tlieir duties as 
citizens, and tolerate crime, misconduct, vi- 
olence, which could not exist but for their 
too tame submission. 

While I was iu Jackson both the State and 
Federal courts were in session, and I bad 
thus an excellent opportunity to see promi- 
nent persons from different parts of the 
State, and used it to inquire as to its general 
condition. The substance of what I heard 
from both Republicans and Democrats is, 
that peace and order prevail iu all the coun- 
ties of Mississippi; tliat there is a better 
feeling than formerly between the whites 
and blacks ; that the colored people who 
labor on the plantations, and who, here as 



elsewhere in the cotton country, usually work 
on shares or rent the land, have made their 
contracts and gone to work earlier this year 
than heretofore, and are laboriug more stead- 
ily than iu any year since the war ; that but 
few cases occur where they are wronged in 
their settlements, and these only among 
poor farmers, Avbo sometimes take advan- 
tage of the negro's ignorance to make a hard 
bargain with him; that there is a strong 
disposition among planters to get the col- 
ored man to buy land, in order that he may 
become a tax-payer, and thus feel tbe bur- 
den which ignorant black supervisors lay 
upon property ; that a considerable number, 
though small iu proportion to the aggre- 
gate negro population, have actually bought 
farms ; that numbers of colored men are 
continually moving into the State from Ala- 
bama and Georgia, and mostly settle on the 
bottom-lands, where tbey raise cotton ; that 
thej'are brought in at a small expense — ten 
or eleven dollars a bead — by agents who fill 
the orders of planters ; that real estate is al- 
most unsalable, and industry has been much 
disturbed, partly by high taxes and financial 
mismanagement, and partly by " politics ;" 
and that the great fault of the State is, that 
tbe courts do not punish murder, either of 
white or black. 

Life is not held sacred, as it is in the North. 
Every body goes armed, and every trifling 
dispute is ended with the pistol. Nearly all 
the disorder and crime is caused by the low- 
er order of whites and by negroes ; for these 
latter Inive, it seems, generally taken up the 
fashion of carrying arms, and in their quar- 
rels among themselves use the pistol or knife 
freely. The respectable people of the State 
do not discourage the practice of carrying 
arms as they should ; they are astonishingly 
tolerant of acts which would arouse a North- 
ern community to the utmost, and I believe 
that to this may be ascribed all that is bad 
in Mississippi — to an almost total lack of a 
right jniblic opinion ; a willingness to see 
men take tbe law into their own bands; and, 
what is still worse, to let them openly defy 
the laws, without losing, apparently, tbe re- 
spect of the community. 

It is the most serious crime which any one 
can charge upon the Republican politicians 
who have ruled Mississippi since 1868, that 
they have not dealt with this lawless spirit. 
Instead of that, they have been engaged in 
plundering tbe State, and iu demoralizing 
the colored people, encouraging them in de- 



MISSISSIPPI IN MAY, 1875. 



manding and taking places of responsibility 
and trust for wliicli their absolute ignorance 
unfitted them, and using the .colored vote 
to further the personal ambition of leading 
" men, and the gi-eed of their hangers-on. 
"^ Governor Ames is one of the most guilty 
in this respect. He is not accused of pec- 
ulation, but it is notorious that his person- 
al adherents are among the worst public 
thieves in the State. He has corrupted the 
courts, has protected criminals, and has 
played even with the lives of the blacks in 
a manner that, if this fall a good Legislature 
should be elected, ought to procure his im- 
peachment and removal. 

The Vicksburg riot shows so clearly the 
condition of the State and the faults of both 
the political factious, which between them 
tear it to pieces, that I will tell here the 
j)rominent points. 

Crosby, an illiterate negro, was chosen 
sheriff and tax-collector of Warren County, 
which has a large negro majority, and which 
contains Vicksburg. Thereupon the Demo- 
cratic iire-eaters began to create an excite- 
ment, and charged that Crosby's bondsmen 
were not good, which is jtrobably true. 
There was a legal way of testing this ques- 
tion, and if, after twenty days' notice, ho did 
not make approved bonds, he was, by that 
neglect, out of office, and incapable of per- 
forming its duties. 

Nor could it be pretended that he could 
evade the law, for the prosecuting attorney 
w\is then Judge Luke Lea, a man of spot^ss 
honor, against whom no Democrat in the 
State has a word to say. But this lawful 
way was despised by the Democrats. A pub- 
lic meeting was held in Vicksburg, and, 
against the advice of some respectable men, 
a crowd violently rushed to Crosby's office, 
and extorted from him, with a half-hour's 
delay, a written resignation. 

Crosby thereupon went to Jackson, to lay 
the case before Governor Ames. 

Ames was urged to go in person to Vicks- 
burg, and by his presence calm the tumult, 
which, I am assured by prominent men of 
both parties, he could have done. He re- 
fused. 

Then several prominent citizens, some in 
high ofHcial position, offered to go them- 
selves as a committee, being confident that 
they could arrange the afiair, quiet public 
feeling, and prevent further disturbance. 

Ames declined their services ; but told 
Crosby to return to Vicksburg and summon. 



not the posse comitatus, as would have been 
proper, but the negroes from the surround- 
ing country, whom, I am told, Ames had 
some time before armed with State guns, as 
he had a right to do, they being part of the 
militia. 

Crosby did as he was told. On Sunday, 
the colored preachers, under his instructions, 
told their people that on Monday morning 
they were ordered to Vicksburg, and those 
who had them were to carry their guns. 

I can not blame the people of the town 
for being greatly alarmed and exasperated 
at this iiroceeding, which became known to 
them during Sunday. If the sheriff of West- 
chester County should one day, finding his 
title to his office disputed, summon the most 
ignorant part of the population to come pell- 
mell into Yonkers with fire-arms, the people 
of that town would also be alarmed. Nor 
do I greatly blame the white mob for what 
followed. A mob is uncontrollable; and 
here were two mobs running tilt against 
each other. There were sensible and brave 
Democrats in Vicksburg who moderated tho 
fury of the whites as soon as they could, and 
thus saved many lives that otherwise might 
have been sacrificed. 

Having dispersed the negroes and defeat- 
ed Crosby, the Democrats now coolly pro- 
ceeded to hold a new election for sheriff, 
which had no warrant or authority in law, 
and installed one of their members in the 
sheriff's office. 

Thereupon, Governor Ames, still "placid," 
as he declared himself, instead of asserting 
his authority as governor of the State, and 
calling on good citizens to help him, called 
on the Federal forces, who put out the jjseu- 
do-sheriff and restored Crosby. 

This being done, the Democrats began to 
bargain with Crosby to become his bonds- 
men, on condition that one of them should 
run the office as his deputy, and share in its 
profits. Before the bargain was completed, 
a native Republican from an eastern county 
appeared, and with him Crosby made this 
arangement. 

This is the brief story of tho Vicksburg 
riot. Begun by lawless Democrats, it was 
continued and brought to a bloody climax 
by an unscrupulous Eepublican governor. 
To complete the storj^, I must add that Cros- 
by's accounts have been found entirely cor- 
rect, so that the Democrats were without the 
least excuse for their violence ; and that Gov- 
ernor Ames has never instituted any investi- 



80 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



gatioa iuto the riot or attempted to bring 
the rioters to justice.* 

One incident of tlie stormy period remains 
to be told, as its most instructive lesson. Be- 
fore the riot, the negroes of the county, Tvbo 
are in a great majority, bad insisted upon 
putting forward for ofiQce a black ticket, con- 
taining tbe names of some notoriously cor- 
rupt colored men. After tbe killing of so 
many colored men on tbe fatal Monday, and 
wben tbe victory apparently remained witb 
tbe wbites, bonest Eepublicans in Vicksburg 
told me tbe colored leaders came to tbem 
greatly bximbled, and acknowledged tbat 
tbey bad beeu badly advised, and promised 
tbat in future tbey would beed tbe counsels 
of good men, and allow bonest and iutelli- 
geut candidates to be nominated. 

But wben, at tbe instance of Governor 
Ames, Fetleral troops removed by force tbe 
Democratic pretended sberiff, and re-install- 
ed Crosby, all tbese pious intentions were 
tbrown to tbe dogs, and tbe old spirit of de- 
fiance of good advice at once re-appeared 
among tbe negroes. 

You "will remember, perbaps, a similar 
story of misconduct in a Louisiana parisb 
by tbe colored men, wbicb was cured by tbe 
M'Euery aflair of tbe 14tb of September. 

Tbe colored people are, in tbeir ignorance, 
tbe prey of demagogues. Tbey are only too 
ready to follow bad leaders, but only wben 
tbese leaders appear to bave tbe Federal 
power at tbeir back. It is an undeniable 
fact tbat to tbe negro tbe Federal sujiport 
seems every tbing, and be bas been per- 
suaded tbat tbe power at "NVasbiugton "will 
npbold bim iu whatever be chooses to do. 
Tbe moment be sees reason to doubt this be 
falls back, and is glad to be guided by bonest 
counselors. Men like Pincbback, iu Louisi- 
ana, and Cardozo, Crosby, and others, in Mis- 
sissippi, are dangerous to the commonwealth 
by the jiower they have over tbeir people ; 
but tbey are dangerous only while they can 
make it be believed that tbe Federal power 
■will sustain them. Governor Ames lost iu- 
fluence among tbe negroes after tbe riot in 
wbicb be suffered so many of tbem to be 
killed; but when at his call United States 
troops came to reinstate the negro Crosby 
iu bis office, then they beheld iu Ames the 
direct representative of tbe United States 
Government, and tbey were ready again to 

* Siuce the above was wntten, Crosby has been shot, 
in a t)ar-i-oom brawl, by his deputy, a white Repub- 
lican. 



rally to bim, and to do bis bidding and fol- 
low corrupt leaders. 

Surely such incidents most clearly show 
tbat the interference of tbe Federal Govern- 
ment, at the demand of State authorities, in 
such a lawless manner as bas been practiced 
in New Orleans and in Vicksburg, tends only 
to harm, and to a mischief so grave as to 
threaten society, because it encourages con- 
temj)t'for good government in a very numer- 
ous and still very ignorant part of tbe popu- 
lation. The problem of black citizenship is 
sufficiently difficult, without muddling it by 
extraneous and arbitrary interference. It is 
tbe opinion of bonest Eepublicans whom I 
met in Mississippi, that the Vicksburg riot 
could bave been entirely prevented, and tbe 
dispute peaceably settled, bad tbe governor 
done bis duty. 

The truth is, the Enforcement acts have 
been used in the last year or two, in all tbe 
Southern States I have seen, almost entirely 
for political purposes ; and tbey are very dan- 
gerous and effective tools for this imrpose. 
But to right personal wrongs tbey are slow, 
ineffective, and almost useless. There was, 
I believe, a time, four or five years ago, w-ben 
the Enforcement acts were valuable, by en- 
abling energetic Federal officers to prompt- 
ly suppress Ku-klux organizations. But at 
present these laws are mere political and 
partisan instruments ; and tbey demoralize 
the Southern Eejiublican State governments, 
because tbese turn over the administration 
of mstice, which is of right their business, to 
Federal officers, and take to stealing and po- 
litical intrigue themselves. When I see to 
what base uses the Federal power is put in 
tbese States, even under tbe Enforcement 
acts, it is plain that the proposed Habeas 
Corpus and Force Bill would bave beeu, in 
tbe bands of such men as Marshal Packard 
and Governor Ames, only a monstrous engine 
of oppression and political intrigue. 

In my letters from Arkansas I spoke harsh- 
ly of tbe Eepublican rulers of tbat State, 
but, compared witb those of Louisiana and 
Mississippi, they were respectable men ; for 
they did itse the power tbey bad — they 
governed the State wliich tbey ruled ; they 
held it in an iron grip, and crushed disor- 
ders with so stern and severe a hand that 
the lawless class were really awed, and the 
decent part of the community gained cour- 
age to assert themselves. They created a 
wholesome public opinion, adverse to vio- 
lence. These others bave in reality encour- 



MISSISSIPPI IN MAY, 1875. 



81 



aged violence by omitting to punish it, and 
I wonder that Louisiana and Mississippi are 
as orderly as they are. It shows that there 
is a predominant love of order among the 
mass of the white population. 

The Democratic politicians of Mississip- 
pi have, however, succeeded in aiSfectiug the 
people with an unreasonable discontent. You 
hear everywhere that the Federal power op- 
presses them, and that it maintains the color- 
line. As to the color-line, fi'om what I have 
told you it is plain that the Democrats them- 
selves keep it up quite as much, even more, 
than the Ames Republicans. A candid Dem- 
ocrat said to me, " The negroes whom I em- 
ploy will always come to me for help iu their 
troubles ; they deposit their money with me ; 
they think I am the best man in the world. 
But when it comes to election they will take 
the word of the most notoriously low-lived 
vagabond who calls himself a Republican 
before they will mine. " It is all our fault,'' 
he added, "because we were so foolish as to 
oppose their rights in the beginning. It has 
cost us more to support their paupers and 
criminals than it would have cost to educate 
and train them for political life. "We made 
a great blunder, and we are paying for it 
now." This sensible man, unfortunately for 
his* State, does not control jjublic opinion. 
H« 18. not a noisy blusterer. 

It is not unnatural that the white people 
shbnkl be even unreasonably discontented, 
for in the planting counties the emancipa- 
tion swept away the greater part of the ac- 
cumulated wealth of the whites, which they 
had constantly invested in slaves. But it is 
a i)ity that they have not men wise enough 
to tell them that courage and hopefulness 
are more useful than despondent grnmbliDg; 
and to explain to them that a part, at least, 
of the taxes laid since 1868 has gone to build 
school - houses, to repair public buildings, 
roads, and bridges, to make good the public 
losses of the war. 

Nor ought they to forget that violence 
aud a lawless spirit inflict serious blows on 
property. Meridian, iu Eastern Mississippi, 
was a flourishing and prosiierous place some 
years ago; but since the riot there it has 
languished, and many of its houses now 
stand empty. The Vicksburg riot was a se- 
vere blow to the prosperity of that town ; 
much of its traffic has gone off to Edwards 
Station, wliich has grown in a few months 
to be a large and busy place. 

The negro is the principal i^roducer in 
6 



Mississippi, and since the war he has become 
a large consumer also, for he almost always 
spends all he makes. The men who have the 
negro trade all get rich. But a riot fright- 
ens the colored people. They are timid, and 
avoid blustering whites, and they are quite 
able to transfer their traffic to new points, 
and do so. This is what has built up Ed- 
wards Station, where the colored men do not 
hear so much talk about the Caucasian race 
and the " damned nigger" as at Vicksburg. 

I must tell you something more of the 
causes which make a union of the good men 
of both political parties, for the purpose of 
electing an honest Legislature and responsi- 
ble county officers, difficult in Mississippi. 

One is the extreme and bitter intolerance 
of the Democratic politicians, which jeal- 
ously interferes to keep the members of the 
two parties apart. A Northern man, being 
a Republican, is therefore a '•'carpet-bag- 
ger," no matter whether he is honest or dis- 
honest. His children hear themselves called 
" Yankees " at school, his wife finds her 
church relations unpleasant. He is looked 
on with aversion, and this though he may 
have brought capital into the State, may 
have all his interests there, and have lived 
there since the war. 

"I have found in Mississippi some of the 
jdeasantest and nicest people I ever met in 
my life," said an excellent Northern man to 
me. "My wife and I have made many of 
the most delightful and congenial friend- 
ships of our lives here among the natives of 
the State. But they are people who live 
quietly on their plantations, where they wel- 
come us with true hospitality. They do not 
mix in politics. The moment I touch polit- 
ical circles, that moment I am repelled as 
only a ' Yankee and a carpet-bagger.' " 

Now, to be a lawyer, and meet, as you 
enter the court, only a stony glare of ha- 
tred or repulsion ; to be a merchant, and 
know that your neighbors will go a block 
or two fiirther rather than trade with you ; 
to be conscious as you walk the streets that 
men are cursing you for being a Northern 

man, and asking themselves, ' What the 

makes him stay here ?" — this is not pleasant 
for honorable men, who pay their taxes, do 
all their duty as citizens, and add materially 
to the prosperity of the State; and who know, 
besides, that this hatred is not the sentiment 
of the mass of honest people, but only of some 
politicians, who encourage it among the 
baser class of whites, whom they influence. 



82 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



Ou the other hand, the negroes and those 
who control their vote form a close corpo- 
ration, bitterly jealous of opposition, trans- 
acting all political business by the tyrannic- 
al rule of the caucus, and ready to persecute 
any Republican who dares to be independ- 
ent. At the first symptom of opposition to 
the decisions of the caucus the opposer's 
name is taken down ; it is sent around in 
his county or district as that of a " bolter," 
and every colored voter is solemnly warned 
to beware of him, as though he were a rat- 
tlesnake. Men are as gravely " read out " 
of the Republican party in Mississippi as 
though it were a church ; and the act of 
excommunication fixes, with the ignorant 
blacks, a stigma upon him as though he were 
a traitor or a murderer ; and white Repub- 
lican demagogues encourage this spirit of in- 
tolerance. 

Thus, the two factions play into each oth- 
er's hands ; both conspire to make independ- 
ent political action and reform almost im- 
possible. 

As for the colored voters themselves, the 
testimony is universal that they are incapa- 
ble of independent political action. They 
must have white leaders and organizers ; 
and, under the circumstances, it is inevitable 
that they should fall a prey to the lowest 
and least scrupulous political vagabonds and 
demagogues. These teach them to take up 
the trade of politics for a living, and tell them 
that, as they cast the most votes, so they are 
entitled to tlie most offices. Some of these 
men have not even a residence in the State. 
O. C. French, for instance, was at one time 
chairman of the Republican State Executive 
Committee, was appointed by Governor Ames 
commissioner to the Centennial Exhibition, 
was a representative in the Legislature from 
Natchez ; and yet, when search was made for 
him the other day by a Federal law officer to 
enforce the penalty of a bond, he had not, so 
far as could be discovered, a residence in the 
State ; and it is said and believed that he 
lives in Ohio. 

Others are mere place-hunters, as, for in- 
stance. State Senator Price, who is also pub- 
lic printer for the judicial district in which 
he lives; his wife is postmistress, his neph- 
ew county superintendent of education and 
dejiuty- collector of internal revenue; his 
son-in-law chancery-clerk ; and he himself 
was lately asking to be appointed sheriff 
and tax-collector. Again, the President of 
the Board of Supervisors of Hinds County, 



in which Jackson lies, is reported to be a 
partner of the State xirinter, and he has the 
job of printing for the county. The other 
four supervisors are ignorant colored men, 
easily imjiosed on. 

The Democrats complain loudly of Repub- 
lican rascality, and with reason ; but their 
own skirts are by no means clean. There 
are Republican counties iu which county 
warrants are at or near par; and there are 
Democratic counties where the warrants are 
at a heavy discount ; and this measures the 
variety of maladministration. In Vicksburg"^i 
the Democrats got up a tax-payers' league, / 
but were made a laughing-stock when it 
was discovered that one of the officers of. 
the league had charged the town five hun-i 
dred dollars for removing a safe from the 
landing to the court-house. 

It must be added that while the Federal 
officers iu the State are iu some cases ex- 
cellent men, the later appointments are iu 
many cases persons despised in the communi- 
ty where they live. The recently appointed 
collector of customs at Vicksburg I heard 
spoken of by colored men as " Polecat Hall," 
and was told by Republicans that he is held 
in general contempt in the community. I 
could mention others. 

As I have spoken frequently of the bitter- 
ness of political feeling in the State, I ought 
to tell you that I have heard of no com- 
plaints from Republicans of intimidation or 
violence at any general election held in Mis- 
sissippi since 1868. Nor do the Democrats 
complain of registration and election frauds. 
The laws are far better than in Louisiana. 
The canvass is usually conducted in what 
would seem to us a rough way ; but the Re- 
publicans are very outspoken. They give as 
good as they get ; they assert their rights, 
and " do not scare worth a cent." The ouly 
cases of political fraud and intimidation of 
which I have heard occurred in Vicksburg 
last August, and at a local election iu Colum- 
bus last December. So far as I have heard, 
these did not attract the attention of the 
Republican State authorities. 

In the Vicksburg city election the Re- 
publicans put up so vile a ticket — desfirifeed^ 
elsewli are — that only three white men voted fJ^ 
for it, and a threat to refuse employment 
to any negro who supported it was, I think, 
clearly justifiable. I certainly would neither 
trade with nor employ a man, white or black, 
who would vote to inflict upon me a notori- 
ously corrupt set of city officers. But in the 



MISSISSIPPI IN MAY, 1875. 



83 



face of the fact that the leading Eepublican 
in the district, General M'Kee, denounced the 
ticket iu a public speech at Vicksburg, and 
that it had no -svhite Eepublican support, 
such silly advertisements as the following 
were printed iu the Democratic papers and 
applauded : 

"AMERICA! AMERICA! 
" The firm of George M. Martz & Co., No. ISS Wash- 
ington Sueet, are making a splendid stocli of every 
thing iu the confectionery line for Christmas. They 
have no European or Northern workmen, but have the 
best iu tlie country, and home folljs at that, who un- 
derstand iheir busiuess to perfectiou. The public are 
invited to come and judge for themselves if this is not 

60." 

In the Columbus city election, held in De- 
cember, 1874, there was undoubted and pub- 
lic intimidation of the kind denoted by the 
document I give you below, and it was with- 
out excuse, because the Eepublican candidate 
for mayor, Mr. Eggleston, was an honest man, 
against whom I am assured no charge of cor- 
ruption or incapacity was made ; and as there 
had been some trouble, the leaders of the two 
parties had agreed that there should be a 
fair and free election. In spite of this, the 
following handbill was circulated and posted 
before election. I have an original iu my 
possession : 

" {This means Business.] 
"BREAD OR NO BREAD. 

"At a large meeting of the citizens of Columbus it 
was 

" Reanhied, That the colored man who votes for Eg- 
gleston will, as certain as fate, vote meat and bread 
out of the mouths of his wife and children ; that we 
pledge ourselves to employ no man who has been dis- 
charged by a member of our club who fails to bring a 
recoinmendaiiou that he has been discharged for no 
fault. 

"Yon have driven the white man to the verge of 
ruin, and he has determined to draw the color-line, 
and if you can stand it, he can. 

"Now, hunt for bread and meat among those whom 
you support. 

" We will know who you are, and it will be brought 
up to yon the first job of work you n.«k for. 

"Any colored man who votes for Joe P. Billups, S. 
C. Plunger, and .1. II. Sharp will be protected iu every 
sense of the term, and every proper assistance afi^ord- 
ed him in the power of the white men of Columbus. 

"Deceaibtr 8, 1874." 

After the election a private circular was 
sent around to leading Democratic business 
men, of which also I have an original : 

" IFor PrivaU Use.] 



" stand to your coIotb, 
Hew to the line." 



" WORTnT. 

George Simonton. 
Elliciv Valentine. 
Henry Watts. 
Henry Glover. 
Granville Brothers. 
Henry Cheatham. 



imwoTiTnY. 
Eobert Gleed, merchant. 
Braxton Littlejohn, mer- 
chant. 
Parson Dickson. 
Parson Proctor. 
Parson Boulden. 



WOnTHT. 

Johnson Wade. 

Allen Collins. 

Frank Meek. 

Charles Timberlake. 

Sidney Wilson. 

Raudle Thomas. 

Green Bell. 

Riley Gilkey. 

James Downer. 

John Jones. 

Lewis Oliver. 

Wilburn Johnson. 

Thomas Anderson (dead). 

Henry Powell, 

Billy Billups. 

A. L. Williams. 

Ed. Humphries. 

Titus Gilmer. 

Csesar Perkins. 

Henry Spaun. 

Nathan Fields. 

Johnston Williams. 

Solomon Williams. 

Ottaway Ridley. 

William Skipwith. 

Perry Richardson. 

Colly Harrison. 

Robert Billups. 

Otho Sherrod. 

Dig Blewett. 

Billy M'Neal. 

John Evans. 

Bill Williams. 

Granville Topp. 

Ned Harrison. 

Asa Sykes. 

Frank Young. 

Beok Covington (doubt- 
ful). 

Mofes Crusoe. 

Martin Baker. 

Jupiter Stallings. 

Andrew M'Caun. 

Tom Banks. 

Jones Baskerville. 

Jack Gilmer. 

Ben Greeu, carpenter. 

John Henry. 

John Miller, eextou at 
cemetery. 

Bud Sykes. 

Armstead Billups. 

Squire Ross. 

Solomon Brown. 

Granville Butler. 

Phil Irion. 

Aaron Cobb. 

Richard Clay. 

Thomas Walley, alias 
Tom Sykes, livery-stable 
keeper. 

Sargent James (voted for 
Billups, but is under 
Lewis). 

Jim Muuroe. 



TTNWOnTnY. 

Wesley Hodges, black- 
smith. 

Eli Hodges, blacksmith. 

Dick Ammons, carpenter. 

Henry Lovely, " 

Jefi"Kirk, " 

Robert Hall, " 

Orange Baskerville, " 

Davy Christian, " 

Lewis Goodwin, " 

Ruffln Eckford, " 

John Green, " 

Pressley Green, " 

Allen Marquess, " 

Henry Baker, " 

Armstead Jones, " 

Warren Baker, " 

Stephen Evans, " 

EUick Latham, shoe- 
maker. 

Charlie Williams. 

Rochester Gregory, apple- 
stand. 

Davy Humphreys, apple- 
stand. 

Joe Baker, cabinet-maker. 

Lewis Alexander, loafer. 

Henry Harrison, mer- 
chant. 

Boston Witherspoon, mer- 
chant. 

Harold Blewett, steward, 
hotel. 

Guy Powell, waiter, hotel. 

Jim Moore, clerk at Gas- 
ton's. 

Simon Mitchell, ex-police- 
man. 

Peter Anderson, Selig & 
Hedle's. 

Mark Brownlee, captain 
negro company. 

Ben Gordon, laborer. 

William Henderson, very 
bad. 

Henry Carrington. 

Ellick Harris. 

Anthony Baskerville, or- 
ator. 

Paul Harrison, cabinet- 
maker. 

Governor Whitfield. 

Christmas Lipscomb, 

Morris Hamilton, garden- 
er. Says, ' Let the white 
man go to hell.' 

Scott Crusoe. 

Richard Harrison, ex- 
magistrate. 

Aberdeen Stallings. 

Austin Jones. 

Harrison Barry, wood- 
chopper. 

Elzy Richards. 

R. F. Stnrdivant, 

Munroe Jones, awful. 

Jim Graves. 

Mack Bartee, brick -ma- 
son. 

Ham Blewett, fruit and 
vegetable peddler. 

Reuben Covington, gin- 
house builder. 

Cato Daves. 

Luck Blewett, wood-chop- 
per at Loeb's. 



84 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



■WOETHT. TTNWOETUT. 

Robert Jackson. 

Ben. O. Young, captain 

negro company. 
Bill Pulliam. 
George Bailey. 
Josh Hairston. 
Ben Moore. 

BTEEET-WAQONS. STEEET-WAGONS. 

Wilburn Johnson. Gid Sims, street-wagon. 

Tom Sykes. William Witherspoon, 
Perry Richardson. street-wagon. 

Henry Spann, H. L. At- Ephraim Curry. 

water's driver, two Lewis Whitfield. 

horses. 
"By order of the Clnb." 

The main object of the " white liners " is 
to demoralize the negro vote by depriving it, 
so far as possible, of white organizers. If 
they can do this fairly I suppose it would be 
justifiable ; but I do not see how it can be 
done. The attempt, made in the temper in 
which these Democratic leaders live, would 
not affect the Ames men, whom it is their 
desire to drive from power. It could silence 
only the honest Republicans, whom the Dem- 
ocrats, if they were wise, would conciliate. 

It remains to speak of the negro as a la- 
borer. The universal testimony of the whites 
of both parties is, that the colored people are 
industrious, but not economical ; and that 
they appear to be less interested in politics 
and more steadily at work this year than 
ever before. Mr. Richardson, who is the 
largest planter in the State, told me that the 
most energetic colored men rent the bottom- 
lands at ten dollars an acre, having, of 
course, besides the laud, house, fuel, fencing 
and some other and minor privileges, as that 
of keeping stock. At this rate, a renter, he 
said, would make in a good year two hun- 
dred dollars, clear of expenses. The renters 
raise corn as well as cotton, and where they 
plant on shares and furnish their own teams 
and implements, the land-owner receives one- 
quarter of the crop, whatever it may be. 

There is no reason to believe that the 
large planters wrong the negroes in their 
contracts or settlements; but the improvi- 
dence of the colored people, which has led 



them into a vicious system of requiring ad- 
vances of food and other supplies from the 
planter, naturally brings them a loss, in the 
higher prices which credit always requires, 
and which in a country like Mississippi, 
where interest is high, must be considerable. 
A planter near Jackson, who pays cash for 
his supplies, told me that while be was buy- 
ing bacon at fourteen cents, a neighbor, who 
required a credit, was charged twenty -one 
cents, and did not hesitate to buy at that rate. 

There is no doubt at all that on the share 
or renting system, as practiced in the rich 
bottom-lands of Mississippi and Louisiana, 
the colored laborer is able to make handsome 
wages, and yet secure greater independence 
than the day-laborer usually enjoys else- 
where. Nor is the jilanter's share too large ; 
for he must give careful and constant super- 
vision, and he has fences and cabins to re- 
pair, a gin -house and mill to furnish, and 
must have capital enough to keep on hand 
supplies for the renters on his land, from the 
sale of which, however, he of course makes 
a profit. 

Mr. Richardson, of whom I spoke above, 
has engaged a part of his capital iu a cotton- 
factory in Southern Mississippi, where he 
now employs two hundred and fifty hands. 
It is so successful that he is about to double 
its capacity. The operatives are all whites, 
and mostly taken from the population of 
small farmers, to whom this additional chance 
of employment is a great boon. He told me 
that the saving in transporting cotton alone 
secures a handsome profit ; but he has also 
very cheap fuel and a large and steady home 
market for the goods he makes. He said he 
had been surprised to discover how large a 
working capital such an enterprise demand- 
ed, aud thought that the chief reason why so 
many Southern factory enterprises had failed 
was, that those engaged in them had not a 
sufiicient working capital, and were cramped 
and destroyed by the necessity of raising 
money at high rates of interest to keep the 
mills going. 



ALABAMA IN MAY, 1875. 



The Alabama Registration and Election 
laws, made in 1868-'9, aud unchanged nntil 
last -wiuter, formed one of the most perfect 
machines for political fraud that I have 
ever heard of. It is amazing to me that 
the decent people of the State, of both par- 
ties, did not unanimously aud loudly protest 
against them long ago. 

A complete registration of the State was 
made in 1868-'9. The lists then made were, 
by law, placed in charge of the probate 
j udges in the counties, and these were obliged 
thenceforth to place every one's name on the 
registry who applied for the purpose, and 
took oath that he was a citizen of the State 
and county, and had the requisite qualifica- 
tions ; and such application might be made 
at auy time. 

No provision Avas made for any revision 
of these registration- lists to strike off the 
names of voters who had died or removed; 
new names were added from year to year, or 
rather from day to day, for there was no set 
time for registration ; it was possible even 
for a man to register under several differ- 
ent names. Moreover, lest any voter should 
neglect registration, it was provided that 
an inspector of election must register him, 
if required, on the day of election ; and the 
names so registered were afterward sent to 
the probate j udge. 

It is easy enough to see that registration- 
lists so prepared, and never revised, were 
mere instruments to conceal fraud. That is 
to say, they would have been the cloak for 
frauds at election if they had ever been used. 

For fear that they might, under some con- 
ceivable circumstance, be used to detect 
fraudulent voting, an amendment to the 
Eegistration Act, passed by the Legislature, 
March 3, 1870, enacts this astounding pro- 
vision : " That it is the intent and meaning 
of this act (namely, the Registration Act) 
that no registration-lists shall be used by 
any inspector, or any other officer of election, 



on the day of election for the purpose of de- 
termining who may or who may not vote; and 
any person attempting to interfere in any man- 
ner tcithany other person ivho may desire to vote, 
shall ie deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and 
punished in the same manner as noic provided 
for in the election laics." 

Lest you should think, as I confess I did, 
that this was only a bad joke or a blunder 
of the Legislature, I show you here that it 
was a law actually obeyed. The clerk of 
the Circuit Court of Wilcox County, one of 
three officers who officially count the vote 
of the county and make the certificates of 
election to the secretary of state, was asked, 
a few weeks ago, " As supervisor of elec- 
tions, would you count a vote that you knew 
was not properly registered ?" and answered, 
" Without any further knowledge of the law 
than I now have, I would." Again, "Are the 
names appearing in the poll-lists duly reg- 
istered according to law ?" He replied, " I 
do not know." 

Another returning officer of the same coun- 
ty being asked how long it would take to 
compare the poll-lists of the county with the 
registration-lists, thought it would take at 
least six months. 

" Poll-lists " were lists made at the polls 
of the names of those who had voted. Now 
mark : The voter in Alabama could, until 
the present year, vote at any poll in his 
county. As he was not required to show a 
registration certificate ; as it was impossible 
to tell whether or not he had registered ; as 
an act of the Legislature expressly prohibit- 
ed any one from preventing his voting, even 
if he had not been registered ; and as he might 
vote at one of a score of polling-places in 
the county, and evidently under any name 
he chose to give, it is quite clear that the 
election law was as great a sham as the 
registration law. 

The whole thing was simply a huge prac- 
tical joke, or would have been, had not the 



86 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



consequences been too serious. I can imag- 
ine Warmoth, Packard, and the other Loui- 
siana "worthies gritting their teeth at the 
thought that they were not up to such a 
trick as this. 

Naturally, "repeating" was carried on on 
a scale which would make even a New York 
political manager blush. In the Congres- 
sional district which includes Mobile aud Sel- 
ma, an investigation has been going on this 
spring into frauds which involve the seat in 
Congress claimed by F. G. Bromberg, against 
a colored man, Jeremiah Haralson. Such an 
investigation is a formal aifair. Due notice 
is given of the witnesses to be heard by each 
side, each candidate is represented by coun- 
sel, and the witnesses are subjected to a se- 
vere cross-examination. Haralson had for 
his counsel the Kepublican candidate for at- 
torney-general of the State, an able lawyer. 
The testimony will bo laid before Congress. 

Since the recent Democratic success in this 
State a number of the Republican leaders 
and managers have quarreled among them- 
selves, and some of them have, so to speak, 
turned State's evidence. Among others, one 
Squires, a political manager in Mobile, was 
brought up before the committee, and, un- 
der oath, testified that he was chairman of 
the Eepublican Union Club in Mobile; the 
club met almost every night for some time 
before the election ; it had about two hun- 
dred and fifty members. " Its object," he 
testified, "was to increase the Republican 
vote of the county — first, by voting them- 
selves ; second, by inducing their friends 
to vote ; third, by voting for their absent 
friends, those who are dead, and others who 
never had any existence." 

The club was divided into squads of ten 
men, for each of which a trusty leader was 
selected. They were regularly instructed 
how to evade the election laws. " Explana- 
tions were given how persons who repeated 
could escape the consequences." 

Finally, sham elections were actually held 
in the club-room, "in which," said this wit- 
ness, who was confii'med, by-the-way, by oth- 
er witnesses, " members were drilled in the 
actual business of election-day ; some were 
judges of elections, some inspectors, others 
deputy-sheriifs and deputy-marshals. The 
members were divided into two crowds, 
representing Eepublicans and Democrats. 
Some were quiet citizens, standing around 
the polls ; others were noisy and disorderly, 
and were arrested ; others, yet, were quietly 



putting in their work. They would come 
up, vote, pass away, retire, change their 
clothes, return, and vote again." 

Observe, all this was not real ; it was a 
sham election — a training-school for repeat- 
ing, and I am quoting sworn testimony, all 
the essential points of which rest on the in- 
dependent evidence of several persons. 

" If a man was challenged and objected to, 
and was fearful of arrest, he would retire 
without voting, aud forthwith assume some 
other and better disguise. Each crowd were 
shown how they might deceive the members 
of the other by pretending that they were 
voting tickets, when in reality they were 
not. For instance, Eepublicans would re- 
ceive their tickets from those representing 
Democrats, aud, while pretending to deposit 
such tickets in the ballot-box, really depos- 
ited them in their pockets or in the lining 
of their hats, substituting therefor Repub- 
lican tickets. They were taught that those 
who go quietly about on election-day are 
very little noticed ; aud that while one par- 
ty was certain that such persons were voting 
for them, and the other party was more cer- 
tain that the same persons were voting for 
them, they need fear no interruption. This 
fact had been thoroughly proved by the per- 
sonal experience of many there present at 
that sham election. A majority of the mem- 
bers had been admitted on account of their 
well known Eepublicanism — by their zeal 
displayed in previous well-fought campaigns, 
and their enthusiasm and determination that 
the Eepublican party should triumph in the 
elections of 1874." I quote this from the 
sworn testimony. 

In addition to these sham elections, ar- 
rangements were made for preparing fraud- 
ulent lists of registered names for use on the 
election-day. The majority of these names, 
though properly registered, were only crea- 
tions of the fancy. The persons for whom 
these names appeared on the registration- 
lists never had existence. Some three thou- 
sand names were thus prepared. It was pro- 
posed, that the squads before mentioned, 
under the control of competent and ener- 
getic leaders, should assemble on the elec- 
tion-morning early, aud, having been fed, 
should proceed, on previously designated 
routes, from poll to poll, voting as often as 
possible. They were instructed to avoid de- 
tection and arrest by various means: "first, 
to vote names that were properly registered ; 
second, to change their personal appearance 



ALABAMA IN MAY, 1875. 



87 



by various disguises ; and as there was "but 
little danger of their arrest by Republicans, 
that, if it should appear expedient, they 
should deceive the Democratic managers at 
the polls into believing that they were vot- 
ing the straight Democratic ticket, while in 
fact they were industriously engaged iu vot- 
ing the straight Republican ticket. These in- 
structions were given in such a way that no 
member could faithfully say that he was ad- 
vised, commanded, or instructed directly to 
vote more than once. Nevertheless, the lead- 
ers of the squad and men in whom confidence 
was reposed understood the whole matter." 
" It was further suggested that it might 
be expedient for some members to carry Dem- 
ocratic tickets in their hands, and thus ap- 
l>ear to be voting such tickets, while their 
pockets were stuffed with an ample supply 
of Republican tickets, which they were rap- 
idly depositing in the ballot-boxes. Also, 
the leaders were privately instructed to keep 
a, careful record of the number of Republican 
tickets deposited by these squads, so as to 
get an approximate estimate of the vote. 
On the night before election, at the club- 
room, after the members had gone, and when 
only the leaders of the squads remained, two 
thousand Republican tickets were laid out 
and folded. Persons were appointed to dis- 
tribute tickets, also food, and some to keep 
account of the reports made by squads. As 
far as possible the route of each squad from 
poll tA poll was designated beforehand, so 
that there might be uo confusion and no as- 
sembly of several squads around one poll on 
election-day. Instructions were also given 
by which reports were exchanged, from time 
to time, of the progress of t ho work, so that 
the precise locality of each squad at any 
time, and also the number of votes up to 
that time deposited by each squad, might be 
known. * * * No regular account of the num- 
ber of votes polled was kept after one o'clock 
on election-day. The aggregate returns, aft- 
er making all allowances, was over one thou- 
sand votes cast. About two hundred mem- 
bers went out on this work on election- 
morning. * * * I saw all the squads at work 
on election-day — some voting; others were 
waiting for their turn to vote ; others pass- 
ing rapidly from one poll to another. They 
reported up to one o'clock that the work 
was going on with vigor. After that time, 
as we found we were beaten, uo further ac- 
counts were kept." 

The scheme broke down because the Dem- 



ocrats had horsemen moving rapidly from 
poll to poll, following the squads of repeat- 
ers, and exposing them. 

Squires's testimony is fully corroborated 
by a number of witnesses, members of this 
club. One testified that if the plan had 
been carried out, two hundred men could 
have cast fifteen hundred votes. Another, 
after speaking of the " drill " and sham elec- 
tion, said that he thought the club had 
polled about one thousand votes, and that 
they did this " for the promotion of the in- 
terests of the Republican party by voting 
early and often." Another testified that they 
" were drilled to repeat, theu change hats 
and go back again, but be smart enough not 
to be caught." Another testified that two 
thousand names were written for the use of 
the repeating squad, ten names on a slip ; 
and so on. 

This was one of the districts in which ba- 
con was distributed by order of Congress, 
and at the expense of the Federal Govern- 
ment, ostensibly for the benefit of sufferers 
by the overflow of the Alabama River in 
1874. This bacon was made a means of sc- 
enting Republican votes ; the negroes were 
told, in some instances, that it was sent them 
direct from General Grant, and it was re- 
ported and understood that the receiver of 
Government bacon must vote the Republic- 
an ticket, under x^enalty of losing all Ids 
" rights in law," a fearful threat to the ig- 
norant blacks. 

J. S. Perrin is a Republican politician. In 
the canvass of 1874 he was at the same time 
Republican candidate for the Legislature, 
United States deputy-marshal, chairman of 
the Republican county committee. United 
States supervisor of election, and, besides 
this, had charge of the distribution of bacon 
appropriated by Congress for sufferers by 
the overflow of the Alabama River. He is 
the same person who recently confessed be- 
fore the Spencer Investigation Committee 
that in the canvass of 1872, being then Uni- 
ted States deputy -marshal, he sliot a hole 
through Iiis own hat, and thereupon imme- 
diately called for Federal troops to protect 
Republican voters against Kn-klux. 

Perrin was made United States deputy- 
marshal again on the 12th of October, 1874, 
at the request of the chairman of the Re- 
publican State Executive Connnittee ; and 
on the 27th of October he called for United 
States troops. The use he made of them ap- 
pears in his testimony, thus : The ostensible 



88 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



object was to enforce writs of the United 
States courts ; but, says Perriu, " said writs 
had no existence." He adds, under oath, 
" The real object of these troops was to quar- 
ter them in the most central portion of the 
district, and intimidate Democratic voters 
by causing reports to be circulated that the 
deponent had warrants for the arrest of a 
large number of whites for alleged violation 
of the Enforcement acts and National Elec- 
tion Law ; also for persons who had failed to 
pay colored men their full wages. Many per- 
sons who had taken an active part in the Dem- 
ocratic nominating convention, and some 
who had had personal difficulties with col- 
ored men, were led to believe the report was 
correct, and rather than be arrested and ar- 
raigned before a United States commission- 
er's court, with unscrupulous witnesses to 
testify against them, and in order to avoid 
the expense and trouble of a trial, prepared 
to leave, and did leave, the county. This 
action incited and encouraged the more par- 
tisan and turbulent negroes to unite the col- 
ored crowd against the whites, and enabled 
me to vote them as I chose." 

As to the use made of government bacon, 
Perrin testified : " I issued the bacon for Mon- 
roe County. Previous to doing so, a report 
was circulated among the negroes that in 
order for them to obtain bacon they would 
have to vote the straight Republican ticket; 
and if they received bacon, and afterward 
refused or neglected to vote said Republic- 
an ticket, they would forfeit their rights in 
law. As I was a candidate for the Legisla- 
ture upon said ticket, I did not consider it 
necessary to correct this report. [Other wit- 
nesses swore that Perrin was the author of 
the report.] It was extensively circulated 
through Monroe, Conecuh, Clarke, and Wil- 
cox counties that a barbecue would be held 
at Monroeville on election-day, and that all 
negroes who would attend and vote the Re- 
publican ticket would receive bacon enough 
to last them a year. This induced many to 
come from adjoining counties to Monroeville 
and vote on said day. The barbecue was 
held, and largely attended. I could not pre- 
vent these illegal votes had I been disposed. 
All strangers were challenged, and, having 
taken the oath, were permitted to vote. 
This was the law of the State. At least five 
hundred illegal votes were cast there for the 
Republican ticket." 

The Federal soldiers were on election-day 
" stationed directly at the polls under arms ;" 



and Perrin testifies positively that of the 
nine hundred legitimate votes cast at Mon- 
roeville for the Republican side, eight hun- 
dred would have voted the Democratic tick- 
et but for these tricks and promises, " as the 
colored people were getting along so well 
with the whites " in their business and jdaut- 
ing relations. 

In Dallas County, where bacon was also 
distributed, an ingenious Republican pqliti- 
cian to whom this bacon had been confided 
caused the negroes who applied for it to 
make affidavit that they had been over- 
flowed, and for witnessing these papers he 
charged each twenty-five cents. He gave 
to each man about two pounds of bacon, 
and he could have bought nearly three 
pounds for a quarter of a dollar. He really 
"made a good thing" out of the negroes, 
and could have afforded to go into the ba- 
con business on his own account. 

Dallas is one of the heaviest negro coun- 
ties in the State. It has suffered from tho 
control of low white and black demagogues, 
and in this county there is the most positive 
and abundant testimony of intimidation of 
black voters by the colored Republican lead- 
ers, both before and on election-day. 

At one precinct, Orville, Haralson, the Re- 
publican candidate for Congress, a colored 
man, said, in a speech, that any negro who 
voted the Democratic ticket ought to be 
swung from the limb of a tree, and called on 
the men and women present to hold up their 
hands in approval of this sentiment. He 
then appealed to the women in the audience, 
demanding if any of them would live with a 
husband or have a sweetheart who would 
vote with the Democrats. 

Forze, a colored man of remarkable abili- 
ty, who rents and himself manages one thou- 
sand four hundred acres of land, testified 
that the negroes were pnt under a general 
apprehension that if the Democrats succeed- 
ed they would lose their right to vote ; and 
the more ignorant, he says, believed that 
they would be re-enslaved. 

At Bellevue precinct a Republican candi- 
date openly threatened all blacks who should 
attempt to vote the Democratic ticket ; and 
a number of colored men testified that those 
who were suspected of such an intention 
were driven away from the poll. 

At Warrenton precinct a colored man who 
had been detected voting a Democratic tick- 
et was seized by a negro mob, who dragged 
him off, and from whom he escaped only by 



•J 



ALABAMA IN MAY, 1875. 



89 



the intervention of -wbite men, -who con- 
cealed him, and, later, set liim on a horse, on 
which he escaped. 

At Pleasant Hill, just before the election, 
Walker, candidate for clerk of the Circuit 
Court, violently denounced all negroes who 
should vote with the Democrats, and de- 
clared they should be killed. 

At Portland a large number of colored men 
complained after the election that they had 
been individually threatened if they should 
vote with the Democrats ; and Cyrus B. War- 



tire State indebtedness. Auditors and treas- 
urers have kept their accounts with such 
lack of method that their reports are un- 
trustworthy. The governors since recon- 
struction — two Eepublicau and one Demo- 
cratic — seem to have spent, invested, ex- 
changed, and generally manipulated the 
State funds and bonds with extraordinary 
carelessness. So far as ascertained, it is be- 
lieved the debt amounts to about twenty- 
eight million dollars. 

The condition of the counties is not bad. 



ner, a colored justice of the peace, elected by In only a few has there been serious iinan- 
the Democrats, testified that the fact that he cial mismanagement. There has been no 
had been mobbed and nearly killed in 1872, | such wholesale plundering as was sutfered 
by ne"-roes, for supporting the Democratic by the people of Arkansas, Louisiana, and 



ticket, was remembered, and prevented, to 
his knowledge, a number of colored men 
from voting with the Democrats. 



Mississippi. Generally I find the majority 
of supervisors have been white men and 
Ijroperty- owners, and this has often been 



I could go ou at great length with such ■ brought about by persuading, or even by 
and even more forcible evidence, but this is j bribing, negroes to give up their offices — 
enough. In this county, Haralson, the Re- ' this in the black counties. But in at least 
publican candidate for Congress had, in writ- a third of the counties the whites have the 
ing, positively charged intimidation by the majority. 

Democrats ; but the testimony of Republic- ' The Democrats complain unreasonably, as 
an violence and intimidation was so over- it seems to me, of Republican misrule. The 
whelming that before the commission he truth is, the State has been misgoverned 
confined himself to efforts to prove that and the State debt increased under Demo- 
there was no intimidation on either side, but cratic as well as under Republican adminis- 



a fair and peaceable election. 

Nor did the candidates confine themselves 



trations. From 1868 to 1870 its governor 
was William H. Smith, Republican. Hira 



to verbal intimidation. One circulated an followed, 1870-72, Lindscy, Democrat. His 



" order " to the colored people to vote for 
him, signed " U. S. Grant, President." An- 
other, J. S. Diggs, now and at that time coun- 
ty solicitor, and in May arrested under crim- 
inal indictment by the grand jury for embez- 
zlement and bribery, circulated through the 
county a printed warning against his oppo- 
nent: 

"REPUBLICANS, BEWARE 1 

"Any one found with tickets with the 

BOLTEB SiLSBY'B NaME 

on it will be prosecuted, and sent to the Penitentiary. 
" J. S. DiQGS, SuliciCor, Dallas Cowity." 

The solicitor is the prosecuting attorney, 
who represents to the colored man the maj- 
esty and terror of the law; and this threat 
was so efl'ective that Silsby received but one 
hundred and fifty-five votes in the county. 

The financial condition of Alabama is bad, 
but it might be worse. The State debt is 
heavy, and will probably have to he scaled. 
Its exact amount is as yet unknown. Mat- 
ters have been managed so loosely that the 
governor told me the other day it would 
take him several months to discover the en- 



successor, 1872-74, was Lewis, Republican, 
followed now by Governor Houston, who 
strikes me as a moderate and well-meaning 
man, who is determined to keep the peace 
and to restore order to the finances. 

Now, so far as I can discover, the Demo- 
cratic Lindsey was little, if at all, more eco- 
nomical than either his predecessor or suc- 
cessor. The Democrats say he was an hon- 
est blunderer; but the Republicans say that 
Smith and Lewis were also honest blunder- 
ers. All, by-the-way, were Alabamians, and 
the State has suffered less from "carpet- 
baggers," so called, than any of the other 
three I have seen. The native Alabamian, 
under the tuition of United States Senator 
Spencer, who is a carpet-bagger, has shown 
himself very capable of misrule, and partic- 
ularly of the most unscrupulous political 
trickery. 

It must also be said that where conspicu- 
ous, financial jobbery took place. Democrats 
have, oftener tlian not, been parties in inter- 
est. For instance, in Dallas County, which 
has a largo negro majority, complaint is 



90 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



made that the blacks, -who do not pay one 
thousaud dollars of the total yearly tax, by 
their votes saddled the county -with a siib- 
scriptiou of one hundred and forty thousand 
dollars to a railroad; but some who com- 
plain of this fail to tell you that the direct- 
ors of the railroad were all prominent Dem- 
ocrats ; and that they advocated the sub- 
scription, and even paid the railroad fares 
of negroes to bring them from the counti'y 
into Selma to vote for it. 

Again, while the finances of Dallas County 
have been mismanaged, and the assessment 
and collection of taxes have been for years 
fraudulently performed by Kepublicau offi- 
cers, you find that in the adjoining county 
of Montgomery the only defalcation which 
has occurred in recent years was by a Demo- 
crat, appointed by the Democratic Governor 
Lindsey. This collector robbed the county 
of tliirty-five thousand dollars, and the State 
of fifteen thousaud dollars, and, I am told, 
now conducts a Democratic newspa^ier iu 
Texas. • 

It is not fair, therefore, for the Democrats 
to blame the fiuancial mismanagement en- 
tirely on the Republicans, or to speak of 
these as having robbed the State. But there 
is no doubt that dishonest Republican lead- 
ers have been guilty of most flagrant and 
shameless political debauchery. I have al- 
ready given some account of how they car- 
ried elections. But the character of candi- 
dates was often of the lowest. 

For instance, in Dallas County, last year, 
Haralson, colored, himself candidate for Con- 
gress, was president of the Republican coun- 
ty nominating convention, and renomiuated 
for tax-collector a man who was then under 
eleven indictments for malfeasance in office. 
He was " triumphantly " re-elected ; and the 
grand jury, composed of six Republicans 
and ten Democrats, with a white Republic- 
an foreman, an excellent citizen, while I was 
there brought in ten new indictments against 
this Republican tax-collector, who was at the 
same time county superintendent of educa- 
tion — but was removed for dnmkenness — 
and was also member of the Common Coun- 
cil of Selma. 

Haralson, himself a " smart " negro, who 
holds the certificate of election as Congress- 
man from the district, which includes Mo- 
bile, was indicted in 1872 for stealing a bale 
of cottou ; and the man from whom the prop- 
erty was taken, in a civil suit actually proved 
ownership, and got the bale, which was found 



in Haralson's cotton -house. The criminal 
suit was dropped by a Republican solicitor 
(Mr. Diggs), who is now himself under iu- 
dictment. 

There is a good deal of complaint of high 
taxation, but I doubt if the Democrats, now 
in power, will be able to reduce it much, and 
their revenue bill of the last session is very 
unpopular in the State, and some of its feat- 
ures have been declared unconstitutional 
by their own attorney-general. Undoubted- 
ly there have been numerous abuses iu the 
State and local governments, such as — to 
give an instance — the letting-out of con- 
victs to their own relatives ; the needless 
increase of petty officers, and a generally 
wasteful administration. 

But the most serious charge that can be 
brought against the Republican leaders in 
Alabama is, that they have secured power 
by corrupting the negroes, and enjoyed it 
without enforcing the laws. It must be 
added that they appear to me to have sys- 
tematically and grossly misrepresented the 
condition of the State as to peace and order, 
with the view of getting the use of United 
States troops and courts for the jiunishment 
of offenses which the State government 
ought to have taken in hand, or, oftener yet, 
for the intimidation of white voters, and 
with the object of keeping up irritation and 
a division between the whites and blacks. 

Alabama is, in parts, still a frontier State. 
Iu some counties there are bad and lawless 
men, but they do not preponderate ; they 
are nowhere so numerous that the State au- 
thorities could not, had they been energet- 
ic, have repressed disorder and maintained 
peace. Unfortunately, the readiness of the 
Federal authorities to interfere demoralized 
the Republican State rulers, who, when a 
disturbance took place, supinely turned the 
matter over to the United States marshal 
and Federal troops. Here, as in every other 
Southern State I have visited, I have found 
the Federal interference under the Euforce- 
ment acts not only unnecessary, at least for 
the last two years, but an absolute and grave 
injury, because it has demoralized the State 
governments, and led them to abdicate their 
proper functions. 

As an example, take the Barbour County 
riots of last year. The Republican governor 
at the time took, so far as I have been able 
to hear, no measures at all to punish the au- 
thors of a very cruel outrage — the shooting 
into a house at Spring Hill, by which a lit- 



ALABA^IA IN ^lAY, 1875. 



91 



tie boy was killed — or to investigate the riot 
at Eufaula. Oii the contrary, he acted as 
though it had been none of his business. 
The -whole matter was turned over to the 
United States Court, and, as Judge Bruce 
has chosen to put off the trial of accused 
persons until the Supreme Court decides 
upon the constitutionality of the Enforce- 
ment acts, if any one is ever punished for 
these crimes, it -will he more than a year after 
their commission. 

A more recent instance has been treated 
by Governor Houston (Democrat) in a differ- 
ent way. In Etowah County three masked 
ruflSaus broke into the jail some weeks ago 
at night, took a negro out, and shot him. 
The people of the county, who are mostly 
Democrats, met at once, and called for a spe- 
cial term of the County Court to investigate 
this murder, and asked the governor to offer 
a reward for the discovery and conviction 
of the criminals, which he did immediately. 
The better class of Republicans in the 
State, so far as I have seen them, without 
exception, told me that the Enforcement 
acts were needless, and ought to be repealed. 
In their opinion. Federal interference irri- 
tates and imbitters feeling between the races, 
makes the Republican party odious, and is 
used mainly by corrupt politicians to intim- 
idate the whites, and to encourage the worst 
black as Avell as white demagogues. 

There is a different opinion, which you 
hear freely uttered by some Republicans ; but 
these men are disappointed politiciaiis, and 
in Alabama I have found this class to be men 
of low character, who are demagogues rather 
than politicians. These would like to see 
the Enforcement acts retained, and they uni- 
versally praise General Grant for his readi- 
ness to send troops and allow of Federal in- 
tervention. Also these people speak dolor- 
ously of the " poor negro," and in general 
they resemble those Arkansas politicians who 
haunted Washington last winter, and who 
swore solemnly that they would not dare to 
return to Little Rock unless Garland were 
overthrown and the Force Bill passed, but 
whom I found two weeks after the adjourn- 
ment of Congress walking about Little Rock 
with cheerful faces, declaring that every 
thing was lovely and peaceful. 

The agitation of the Congressional Civil 
Eights Bill did more, even, than Republican 
misrule, to give the State to the Democrats 
last fall. Alabama has a large population 
of whites — small farmers, collected in the 



northern counties, where there are but few 
negroes. These people, who had xiretty gen- 
erally voted the Republican ticket in pre- 
vious years, became alarmed at the prospect 
of " negro equality," which has greater ter- 
rors, it seems, the less likely it is to become 
a fact ; and last fall, under the representa- 
tions of adroit and earnest Democratic speak- 
ers, they went over in a body to the Demo- 
cratic party. The passage of the absurd 
Civil Rights Bill by Congress has probably 
allayed their fears, because it is now found 
to be substantially a dead letter. The blacks 
do not attempt to have it enforced, and it is 
probable that its only use will be to annoy 
the Republicans in Northern States, and in 
regions South where there are but few ne- 
groes, and where the Democrats propose to 
arouse the race prejudice by hiring negroes 
to board at hotels, and to otherwise insist 
on the enforcement of the law during the 
next year's canvass. 

The Democratic victory has brought to 
the victors, I suspect, more cares than iileas- 
ures. The reformation of the State's finances 
is not an easy task ; the Legislature proved 
to have among its Democratic majority some 
embarrassing simpletons; the Republicans 
did not fail to annoy their opponents, as 
only demagogues solicitous for party suc- 
cess rather than for the good of the State 
know how to annoy ; some imprudent prom- 
ises made by the Democrats, such as a re- 
duction of taxation, could not be fulfilled ; 
and, altogether, the Democratic party does 
not stand so well in the State as it did im- 
mediately after the election. 

The governor is a good man, with expe- 
rience in legislation and administration; 
and it is at least probable that he will be a 
governor, and not a mere political figure- 
head. In his inaugural address, he said : 
"With a firm determination to respect and 
maintain my oath of office, which shall be 
a seal to my conscience, I unhesitatingly 
undertake to perform such duties as it im- 
poses ; and I will regard it as one of my high- 
est and most sacred obligations to see that 
the laws ' are faithfully executed,' and the 
rights of all citizens, ' without regard to race, 
color, or previous condition,' duly guarded 
and protected." Governor Houston assured 
me that these were not empty words, but 
that he was solemnly determined to enforce 
the laws, and to maintain peace and order, 
and protect alike all the citizens of the State. 
The immediate results of the Democratic 



92 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



success iu Alabama are : first, a strong tend- 
ency in the white politicians to re-arrange 
parties, and to split iu such manner as to 
break up completely the color -line. You 
must understand that the Democrats, as is 
but natural, resist this with all their might. 
They want to keep together the white vote, 
and to attract to themselves some part of 
the colored vote. But there are, naturally, 
>^wo factions among the whites. The line 
between Whigs and Democrats is not so 
strongly drawn in Alabama as in Louisiana 

Sand Arkansas, but it exists ; and, besides, 
there are more ambitious men than there 
are offices in the gift of one party. 

At several places iu the State the local 
elections this spring have developed differ- 
ences among the Democrats. At Opelika 
the result was odd enough, the Democratic 
candidate receiving a majority of the black 
vote, and the independent man a majority 
of the white. At Montgomery over four 
hundred colored votes were cast for the 
Democratic candidate, who was chosen over 
his independent competitor; but the latter 
"was not a competent person, as some of his 
supporters confessed to me. I hear, how- 
ever, that in this place Democrats bought 
up, at two dollars a piece, the registration 
certificates of colored men to the number of 
over two hundred, and these were carefully 
retained, except in cases where it was quite 
certain that the original holder would vote 
the Democratic ticket. Under the new law 
a voter must produce his registration paper, 
so that if he jiarts with it, he loses his vote. 

At Opelika, by -the -way, I am told, the 
Democrats managed to capture a whole col- 
ored church, minister aud all, by a moderate 
subscription to the church-fund. It was a 
Republican j)olitician who told me this, on 
the authority, as he explained to me, of a 
"colored mau, a member of the Legislature, 
whose brother lives here, and keeps a bar 
and a gambling-place. The legislator is a 
gambling man himself, but an honest fellow 
so far as his politics are concerned." This 
description gives one a curious notion of 
Alabama colored legislators, and of the mor- 
al standard among the Republican leaders. 

The Republican party in this State has 
some excellent men among its members, but 
they are, unfortunately, men of little iuflu- 
ence in the party councils. If they could 
get rid of most of the Federal ofiice-holders, 
they might hope to re-organize, and become 
a valuable aud effective political force in 



the State. But the present Republican lead- 
ers are, in the main, meu of little character 
or power. There are but two insignifi- 
cant Republican newspapers iu the State, 
both owned by one man, and apparently 
published for the sake of the post-office 
and other Governmental advertising, which 
is their pap, without w^hich they would 
perish, and which Senator Spencer secures 
them. 

The Democratic success has had a good 
effect on the colored voters, or, rather, on 
the demagogues who controlled them. It 
has moderated their ambition. The negroes 
themselves begin to think of " splitting the 
vote." In two j)laces I was told that the 
proposal had been made by negro leaders, 
as an act of prudence, to divide their vote 
hereafter. 

Immediately after the election, ignorant 
colored people were much alarmed, thinking 
they would be deprived of some rights, and, 
perhaps, even reduced to slavery. This fear 
is dying out. It grew out of the declara- 
tions made before the election by Republic- 
an demagogues, who apj)ealed to the fears 
of the poor negroes, in order to secure their 
votes to the Republican ticket. But, now 
that they find themselves unharmed aud just- 
ly treated, they begin to lose their fear, and 
even to think of voting with the Democrats. 
While I was in Selma, a colored man was de- 
fended in a suit in court by one of the best 
lawyers in the State, General Pettus. He 
had six black witnesses ; his opponent, who 
was white, produced six white witnesses; 
the jury were all white ; but the colored man 
gained his case : the jury gave a verdict for 
him. It produced a great effect upon the 
negroes, who saw that justice was done re- 
gardless of color, aud this after a Democratic 
political victory. 

I think it probable that the negro vo'te in 
the next election will fall off heavily, and 
this not through intimidation, but partly be- 
cause the baser white men who have lived 
off the negro vote are discouraged, aud will 
not take so much pains to "organize" the 
black voters, and stimulate them by inflam- 
matory addresses and the exhibition of Uni- 
ted States troops ; partly because in many 
counties the blacks have been for some time 
disgusted with their Republican leaders, who 
have promised many things, such as the fa- 
mous " forty acres and a mule," which have 
not come to pass ; and partly, also, because 
the new law which requires a voter to vote 



ALABAMA IN MAY, 1875. 



93 



in tbe precinct in wLicli he lives, and no 
longer allows Lira to vote anywhere in the 
county, makes the election -day a compara- 
tively tame affair. Formerly all the negroes 
of the county used to march into the county 
town to vote, where they saw each other 
and made a grand holiday. 

No doubt, too, the Democrats will do their 
best to persuade those negroes who would 
vote the Kepublican ticket to abstain from 
the polls, and there are legitimate ways to 
do this. In Louisiana colored laborers on 
the railroads, who lose a day's pay if they go 
off to vote, often, in 1874, did not vote at all. 
The check which all this will set to the 
negro's ambition to hold office will be an 
undoubted advantage to him and to the com- 
munity, lu the last Legislature there were 
three colored members who could neither 
read nor write. In some counties the ma- 
jority of the supervisors are illiterate blacks. 
Matters are not nearly so bad in this respect 
in Alabama as in Mississippi ; but, of course, 
a law-maker or a tax-levyer who is illiterate 
is not fit for his responsibilities. Some of 
the Republicans complained to me of a law 
adopted by the last Legislature obliging of- 
fice-holders to procure the proper bondsmen 
within the counties in which they serve ; 
and I was told that in Dallas County, for in- 
stance, there are not more than a dozen Re- 
publicans who own property and can become 
bondsmen. But it seems to me that the rule 
is a sound one, and can iucouvenience main- 
ly only a class of men who ought not to hold 
important offices. At any rate, it is of no 
permanent importance, because when the 
color-line is broken property-holders will be 
found in both parties. 

I do not think that I have anywhere found 
the negro vote giore wickedly or thoroughly 
mauii)nlated than it was in Alabama. It 
was systematically compacted. A "bolter" 
was not merely denounced, but held to be 
no better than a criminal. In the black 
counties there were colored demagogues who 
had a clientage of voters whom they con- 
. trolled ; and more than one Republican told 
'' me that such fellows would go about in the 
beginning of a canvass and "coax a man to 
run for office, in order that they might sell 
him the vote they could carry." Such fel- 
lows were hired to make the canvass of a 
county. A Republican politician said to me, 
" I have sent a negro on a hired horse, pay- 
ing him days' wages, over the county, to 
advocate a measure, and when election - day 



came, every colored vote was cast for it." 
Perrin, a Republican manager, defeated 
Sheats for Congress by simply telling the 
blacks that he, Perrin, thought him unfit. 
Negroes testified that they would have voted 
the Democratic ticket if Perrin had told 
them to. 

Alabama was not in the old times famous 
for schools, but it is now better jirovided 
than Mississippi, or even Arkansas. In Mo- 
bile, Selma, and some other places, an ad- 
mirable school system is fouud for both col- 
ors. In Selma, ten per cent, of the city rev- 
enues is set apart, by a Democratic council, 
for school purposes, and divided among both 
colors. Mobile, Montgomery, Selma, Bir- 
mingham, and Huntsville, all have graded 
schools for both colors, and at Huutsvillo 
there is a colored normal school. The State 
school-fund yields one dollar twelve and a 
half cents per head for all the children in 
the State; and, besides this, the poll-tax 
is given to the school-fund in each county. 
Unfortunately, the poll-tax has not been 
fully collected. lu Lowndes County, for in- 
stance, not a dollar of poll-tax was collected 
last year; and the tax-collector, being a 
candidate for re-election, urged, as a point 
in his f;xvor, that " he had not troubled them 
about the poll-tax." The State superintend- 
ent told mo that fewer black than white 
children attend school, in proportion to the 
population. 

It is the universal testiriiony of men of 
both parties that the colored people are 
working better this year, more steadily and 
effectively, than ever before since the war, 
and also that, on the whole, they are re- 
quiring smaller advances, which means that 
they have corn left over from last year. It 
may be said that the people generally, white 
as well as black, in all jiarts of the State, 
are more steadily laboring than in previous 
years. Alabama has had three successive 
poor crops, and the planters and farmers 
are generally poor. This year, so far, prom- 
ises well, and a good crop would put both 
parties in good humor. 

The State has lost a considerable part of 
its colored population by emigration to Mis- 
sissippi, Arkansas, and Texas. Now that 
its political affairs are settled — as I believe 
they are — it is possible that the tide may 
turn. Its immensely rich mineral resources 
in coal and iron are as yet almost untouch- 
ed ; but it is a singular fact that iron is al- 
ready sent from here, not only to Ohio, Mia- 



94 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



souri, Kentucky, and other Western States, 
but even to England, where the tenacious, 
soft iron of Alabama begins to be used in 
the manufacture of car -wheels. If high 
XJrotective duties had not caused the estab- 
lishment of too great a number of iron- 
works, and an oversupply of iron in the 
country, the Alabama iron region would be 
rapidly developed. If the tariff on pig-iron 
should be considerably lowered in the next 
few years, fui-naces would be set up in great 



numbers in this State; for here iron of the 
finest quality can be produced at so cheap a 
price that it requires no duty to protect it 
against foreign competition. 

As in the other States I have visited, cot- 
ton and corn are usually planted on shares, 
the planter receiving a moderate share of 
the crop as rental on his land. This plan is 
satisfactory to the colored people ; but they, 
as yet, lay by but little of their earnings, and 
show a very slight disposition to buy laud. 



NORTH CAROLINA IN JUNE, 1875. 



North Carolina had, according to the 
census of 1870, 678,470 white people, aud 
391,650 colored. The Republicau estimate 
of voters here in Ealeigh is that, of a total 
voting population in the State of about two 
hundred thousand, between seventy thou- 
sand and eighty thousand are colored. 

The State was heavily Republican iu 1868. 
This means, of course, that a considerable 
part of the white population then supported 
the Republican ticket. But in two years 
this majority was so fur frittered away by 
the people's disgust and alarm at the cor- 
ruption and maladministration of the Re- 
publican rulers, that the Democrats, in 1870, 
carried the Legislature, and they have held 
it ever since. The governor, however, has 
been, and remains, Republican. 

I need not recite here the story of the North 
Carolina era of railroad grants, and other 
official and party corruption and maladmin- 
istration. Its results still remain in a State 
debt, the interest of which is not paid, aud 
which the rulers of the State evidently do 
not know how to manage. The total State 
debt amounted, last November, to very near- 
ly $30,000,000, which includes heavy arrears 
of interest. The State debt in 1860 was only 
$8,37-2,900, in addition to which $1,128,000 
of bonds were issued during the war for 
internal improvement purposes. The past- 
duo interest on all the State debt has been 
funded several times, aud the interest on 
that is not paid. 

The Republican rulers between 1868 and 
1870 managed to issue over $12,000,000 of 
bonds for railroad and other purposes, the 
greater part of which was wasted or lost in 
stock-gambling in Wall Street ; and it was 
this which caused their overthrow. 

In 1872, Caldwell, the Republican candi- 
date for governor, was elected by about one 
thousand eight hundred majority. The gov- 
ernor in this State holds office four years. 
In 1874 a State superintendent of public in- 



struction was chosen, aud the Democrats in 
this vote carried the election by about eiglit 
thousand majority. The agitation of the 
Civil Rights Bill caused the greater part 
of this change iu the two years ; but it is 
confessed by the Republicans that they lose 
strength constantly, the fact being that no 
new white voters join their ranks, while 
they lose constantly by death, removal, aud 
desertion. 

When the Democratic Legislature of 1870 
came into power, it carefully gerrymandered 
the Senate and House districts, so as to se- 
cure a permanent, though not large. Demo- 
cratic majority iu the General Assembly. 
There has been some complaint among the 
Republicans on this head; but the leading 
men of that party, who are mostly candid 
men, confess that they can not complain, be- 
cause they set the example of gerrymander- 
ing in 1868, when they were in power; and, 
no doubt, if they should carry the Legisla- 
ture they would do it again. 

North Carolina is at peace. I tell you 
this on the authority of the ablest and fore- 
most Republicans in the State ; and, indeed, 
there is no pretense here to the contrary. 
"The Democrats mean no violence, no wrong 
to anyone, no hostility to the Government; 
there is no political crime in the State; 
there is no intimidation by the Democrats ; 
they mean only to defeat the Radicals and 
keep them down ; and they dislike negro 
rule." Tliis was said to me by one of the 
foremost Republicans in the State, a Federal 
office -holdei", and it was confirmed by not 
less than a dozen others, all zealous and some 
bitter Republicans, and by leadiug colored 
men also. 

Those to whom I put the question unani- 
mously said, too, that the Enforcement acts 
are of no use or importance any longer iu 
North Carolina. There is no necessity for 
such laws in the State. " They were once 
useful aud necessary, but the time for them 



96 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



has passed." They are now only a reproach 
to the Republican party, and a handle for 
the Democratic politicians. 

The Republican testimony is unanimous 
on these heads. It is confirmed by the atti- 
tude of the two parties toward each other. 
There are, here and there, extreme and bit- 
ter men on each side ; and in a few counties 
where the negroes have a large majority, and 
where they have been used by corrupt white 
and black men to keep in power wasteful 
and corrupt local rulers, there is, naturally, 
stronjr feelinjr. But even there there is no 
violence, and the best men of both parties co- 
operate together to maintain order. There 
is but little estrangement of families on ac- 
count of politics ; it is not uncommon, for 
instance, to see p. Democratic and a Repub- 
lican lawyer partners ; and the Democrats 
try to relieve themselves of the undoubted, 
and by the Republicans generally acknowl- 
edged, evils of negro supremacy in the few 
counties where the blacks are predominant, 
by the exercise of ingenuity in framing char- 
ters, and gerrymandering city wards. Of this 
I will give some account hereafter when I 
describe the conduct of the negroes in poli- 
tics, which has not been entirely lovely. 

The Republicans admit that the Civil 
Rights Bill has nearly broken up their party 
in the State. It was the predominant issue 
in the canvass of 1874, and caused not only 
their defeat, but a partial disorganization, 
which the Democratic leaders, if they had 
been wiser than they are, could, I believe, 
have made entire. 

The Republican party of North Carolina 
is comjiosed of the great body of the negroes, 
and of a large mass of the poor whites in the 
western, or mountain, districts. But these 
small white farmers dislike the negro, whom 
they know little about, and are easily alarm- 
ed at the thought of social equality with 
him. The Democratic politicians very nat- 
urally worked upon their fears on this point, 
and thus found their best argument put into 
their hands by those Republican leaders in 
the North who insisted upon this measure. 

Nor was this the worst result, even, of the 
Civil Rights agitation. There is no doubt 
that the Democrats had begun to make up 
their minds to conciliate and, if possible, 
gain over a part of the negro vote — to break 
up the color-line. The best and wisest of 
them acknowledged to me freely that the 
only permanent political settlement in the 
State lies in this direction — a reformation of 



parties, with an extinction of the color-line 
in politics ; and they looked forward to this 
as not far off. But, said these same Demo- 
crats : 

" When the Civil Rights Bill came up as 
a prominent issue last year, we dared not 
conciliate or ask for the colored vote. To 
do so would have alienated from us the great 
mass of the white vote, for our people were 
naturally and deeply excited on this ques- 
tion. Hence, in the canvass of 1874 we ad- 
dressed ourselves entirely to the whites, and 
were forced to let the negro vote go where 
it would. It would have aroused our own 
people against us, had we made any overt- 
ures to the blacks. Oar efforts were all 
turned to gaining over white Republicans, 
and we did so jiretty effectually." 

These men were right, of course, as poli- 
ticians ; and I find that their appeal to white 
Republicans was strong enough to gain over 
in Wake Countj'^, for instance, which has a ne- 
gro majority, and is usually Rejjublican, 499 
votes, all whites, who in 1874 voted the Demo- 
cratic ticket because of the Civil Rights Bill. 

A prominent colored man with whom I 
spoke, a jjolitician of some note in the State, 
and an able man, told me that he was per- 
suaded the Civil Rights Bill had done seri- 
ous harm to his people. He added that no 
sensible colored man favored it ; they were 
opposed to it, but the bad and ignorant ne- 
groes were excited by it ; and this largely 
because bad white men, who use the negro 
vote in such counties as New Hanover (in 
which W^ilmington lies) took pains to advo- 
cate it ; the object of these white men being 
— said this colored man to me— to keep them- 
selves in profitable offices by pandering to 
the ignorant negro vote. 

I asked him why, if he and others of his 
race saw this, they did not go to Washing- 
ton, and remonstrate with the Republican 
leaders in Congress, and explain to them the 
mischief they were doing. 

He replied, " Some of us did speak our 
minds privately to Senator Morton and oth- 
ers, but it was of no i;se." 

" But," I said, " you should not have 
worked privately. Why did you not get up 
a public remonstrance V 

"Ah," he replied, "we did not dare do 
that. It would have been said at once 
among our people here that we had sold out 
to the Democrats; that we were bolters; 
and all our influence would have been gone 
from that moment. The difficulty with our 



NORTH CAROLINA IN JUNE, 1875. 



97 



people is that tliey do not read. The mo- 
ment one of us tries to oppose the working 
of the bad whites or corrupt black leaders, 
these send out runners all over a county 
or district to tell the colored people that "sve 
have sold out, and then they will have noth- 
ing more to do with us, and we are gone up." 
That is to say, the mass is so ignorant that 
it is controlled very easily by a few design- 
ing knaves, whose personal interest in con- 
trolling it is so great that they can afford 
to take extraordinary pains. This is one of 
the main difficulties with the whole Eepub- 

• lican party in North Carolina. Its honest 
members have no means of forming a pub- 
lic opinion in the party which would enable 
them to reform abuses, to turn adrift cor- 
rupt and incompetent leaders, and to make 
the party useful and strong. 

The poor whites who commonly vote the 
Republican ticket are but little less illiter- 
ate than the blacks. It is believed that not 
more than twenty-five thousand newspapers 
are taken in the whole State ; but of this 
small number, seven-eighths are taken by 
Democrats. Some Republicans to whom I 
submitted this estimate, which was made by 
a Republican for me, remarked that, in their 
opinion, the Republicans did not take even 
so many. The party has no daily news- 
paper in the State, and only sis or seven 
weeklies, all small, and edited with little 
intelligence. They tell a story in Raleigh 
of the owner of the official organ of the par- 

-, ty two or three years ago, a prominent Re- 
publican, who determined to wind up the 
paper, and being asked to continue its pub- 
lication, remarked, "Do you think I'm a 
d — d fool, to print a paper for a party that 
can't read ?" 

A political party composed so entirely of 
a mass of ignorance is, of course, easily de- 
ceived and misused by designing men, and 
it can scarcely look for the respect or the 
confidence and co - operation of the intelli- 
gent and property-holding class ; especially 
where, as is fully acknowledged by the hon- 
est men in the Republican party, these find 
themselves with too little influence to guide 
or control the mass, and are, for the most 
part, subordinated to corrupt and incapable 
leaders. 

In spite of all this, the State is by no 
means certainly Democratic. It would be, 
I am persuaded, if the Democrats had not 

'^ among their politicians a number of men of 
little brains, who make foolish speeches in 
7 



the Legislature, and appeal to the old prej- 
udices among the people. The blunders of 
such men alienate a good many sensible 
whites from the Democratic party. For in- 
stance, in the last Legislature they carried 
through a usury law, with the result, now 
seen and generally made known to the plant- 
ers and farmers, of forcing the banks and 
other owners of money to send it out of the 
State into other States where no usury law 
exists. North Carolina needs more capital, 
for the State is rich in mineral and other 
natural resources ; and being at peace, there 
is no reason why its natural wealth should 
not begin to be developed. But money is 
worth from one to one and a half per cent, 
a month in neighboring States, and capital- 
ists naturally prefer to send it there, rather , 
than accept seven per cent, at home. Of 
course the Democratic party is rightly held 
responsible for this blunder. 

Again, the last Legislature forced upon 
the people, after long caucusing, and against 
the better judgment of the wisest Demo- 
crats, a constitutional convention. It is 
generally acknowledged by both parties that 
the constitution requires change in one or 
two matters, especially in the article re- 
lating to county courts, which in a blunder- 
ing manner fixes the number of these courts 
in such a way that in the wealthier and 
busier parts of the State they are entirely 
taken up with criminal business, to the ex- 
clusion of civil cases, whereby justice is se- 
riously impeded. But the opponents of a 
constitutional convention urge that the re- 
quired amendments could easily have been 
submitted by the Legislature to the people ; 
that this would have saved the expense of 
an election and a convention to a State 
which already does not pay the interest on 
its debt, and which is not prosperous ; and, 
further, that it is impossible to tell what a 
constitutional convention will do or attempt. 
It is by no means certain that the Democrats 
will carry the convention, and, with a Pres- 
idential election to come next year, they 
have put themselves into the dilemma of 
either being beaten at the convention elec- 
tion in August, or, if they are successful, 
of having the responsibility of a convention 
in which it is pretty certain that ignorant 
men will bring forward some injudicious 
and perhaps alarming measures.* 

• Since the above was written, a constitutional con- 
vention has been chosen, with but two Democratic 
majority. 



98 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



Also, some of tlie cTianges which they pro- 
pose are uot popular, aud will arouse oppo- 
sition. Such is a proposition to abolish the 
system of townships, established for the fii'st 
time in 1868, under which justices of the 
peace are elected by the people, aud return 
to the old system, under which the Legisla- 
ture appointed an unlimited number of men 
in every county justices of the peace or mag- 
istrates for life or duriug good behavior, and 
gave to a certain number of these, selected 
by the whole, the duty of holding quarter 
sessions. Of course, the present justices of 
the peace, their friends, aud all who have 
come to favor the township system, will op- 
pose the change, and this includes a number 
of Democrats. The object is to relieve the 
"black" counties of colored justices of the 
peace, which seems reasonable enough ; for 
some of these negro Dogberrys are amazing- 
ly ignorant, and they are, unfortunately, al- 
ways likely to be corrupt. 

The error of the Democrats lies, it seems 
to me, in endeavoring to adapt the constitu- 
tion to a transitory state of political affairs ; 
for it is quite certain that the political col- 
or-line will presently be broken; and when 
that happens, when the body of intelligence 
and wealth in the State is pretty equally 
divided into two political parties, and the 
negro vote is also split, the colored men will 
no longer be put into offices for which, by 
lack of intelligence and character, they are 
unfit. 

Meantime the Republicans acknowledge 
that, if they are defeated in August, their 
party organization will be pretty thoroughly 
^destroyed. 

In the last election (1874), the white Ee- 
publican vote was very greatly reduced, and 
the civil rights agitation strengthened the 
color -line, as I have said. But the blacks 
have acted very well under the law. Here 
and there one hears of a colored man trying 
to enforce it ; but the public opinion of the 
best colored men is against it, and the law 
is a dead letter. 

The Republican party of North Carolina, 
as at present constituted, is not a useful 
body; and the sooner it disappears and 
makes way for another, the better for every 
interest in the State, and especially for the 
colored people, who are now, in the main, 
the creatures of bad white and black lead- 
ers, who only keep up irritation against the 
race by their corruption. This, I have rea- 
son to believe, is the opinion of many hon- 



est and sincere Republicans in the State — 
some of them colored men — aud also of a 
large number of conservative Democrats, 
who feel themselves now without influence 
in the Democratic party, but who will not, 
and can not, act with the Republican party 
as it is at present constituted. 

North Carolina had formerly a peculiar 
constitution. Under it the State Senate was 
chosen by freeholders owning fifty acres of 
land or more, and a State senator must hold 
three hundred acres in fee. The justices of 
the peace were a numerous body in each 
county, recommended by the governor, and 
appointed by the Legislature during good 
behavior. They chose in each county cer- 
tain ones of their own number to hold the 
county courts. There was no township gov- 
ernment such as is now general in the Uni- 
ted States, aud as obtains also at present in 
North Carolina. 

Some of the Democratic citizens desire to 
return to the old system, believing that prop- 
erty ought to be represented in one house of 
the Assembly, and wishing also to take away 
from the people the election of local magis- 
trates. 

If the color-line were to be perpetual iu 
the State politics, probably some change 
guarding property against the attacks of a 
mass of ignorance would bo expedient. But 
as soon as the intelligent and property-own- 
ing citizens cease to act with only one par- 
ty, and become distributed by the mutations 
of politics somewhat equally in both, the ig- 
norant voters will cease to bo dangerous ; for 
there can be no doubt that the negro will, 
in such a state of things in the South, for 
many years to come, vote with his employer 
if he treats him justly, and against him if he 
cheats him. 

Of course, there are Democratic politicians 
who tell you that they think it best to keep 
the white vote together, and massed against 
the black vote. " Thus we may hope to con- 
trol the State, and the west aud middle can 
protect us in the east, or sea-board :" so said 
a Wilmington Democrat to me, and made me 
smile, because, not an hour before, a Repub- 
lican had said to me that it was "best to 
keep the black vote together ; for thus, with 
the help of white votes, the State could," he 
thought, "be controlled by the Republicans." 
And while such politicians dream, both par- 
ties are splitting to pieces ; and if Congress 
will only stop legislating about the South, 
or threatening it with Force bills and Civil 



NOETH CAROLINA IN JUNE, 1875. 



99 



Rights bills, no power on earth can keep them 
in their present condition after, and hardly 
until, the nest Presidential election. 
" North Carolina is the first Southern State 
I have visited where men are discussing some 
public question other than reconstruction, 
the negro, and civil rights. There is a strong 
hard -money element in the present Demo- 
cratic party, and I heard a good deal of dis- 
gust expressed by some respectable Demo- 
crats at the platform of the Ohio Democrats. 
The adoption of a usury law by the Legisla- 
ture has also raised discontent and discus- 
sion. Of course, the party leaders discourage 
such opinions. They want " harmony," and 
"a firm front to the enemy;" but the peo- 
ple are really thinking of new questions, and 
tired of the old. 

The State is not as prosperous as it ought 
to be. A large part of the planters are heav- 
ily in debt, and have even fallen into a way 
of mortgaging their crops in advance. They 
work, mainly, a thin and worn soil, which 
needs manure, and they adhere, to a greater 
extent than in any of the South-western 
States, to the system of paying wages, which 
I do not believe to be the best or most satis- 
factory, either to the planter or the negro 
laborer. 

I have noticed that, when a cotton-plant- 
er is embarrassed, in debt, and not making 
money, he is very apt to think that "the ne- 
gro don't work," and this you may hear oc- 
casionally hereabouts. But wherever I have 
found a planter who managed well, and had 
sufficient capital to carry on his operations, 
he was successful, and was also well satisfied 
with the negro. The answer I oftenest re- 
ceived from planters and others whom I ask- 
ed about the negro as a laborer was this : " If 
you pay him regularly, cash in hand, and do 
not attempt to sell him any thing, but let 
him trade elsewhere, and if you deal fairly 
with him, he is the best laborer you can get, 
and you can always keep him." 

la the cotton country a few negroes rent 
land outright, I judge mostly on the richer 
soils, and then pay from three to seven dol- 
lars per acre. The commoner way is to rent 
twenty-five acres, for which, on strong land, 
he pays sixteen hundred pounds of lint, or 
unginned cotton. Others iilant on shares, 
and give the planter one-third of the corn 
and one-quarter of the cotton. In this case 
the negro has his own mule. If the planter 
furnishes the mule, the negro receives some- 
times one -third or one -quarter of the crop 



and a meat ration. Where they serve for 
wages, they receive from ten to twelve dol- 
lars a month and a ration, consisting of five 
pounds of bacon and a bushel of meal. Where 
the negro works for wages, he tries to keep 
his wife at home. If he rents land, or plants 
on shares, the wife and children help him 
in the field. 

It is odd that the blacks will not eat beef 
or mutton. They say " it don't stand by 
them." The meat ration is always of pork. 
An intelligent planter told me, after some 
consideration, that he thought if you took a, 
thousand colored people, men, women, and 
children, now, working in cotton, they would 
produce one -quarter less than when they 
were slaves. He was, however, not certain 
of this ; nor had he ever thought which was 
the cheapest, free or slave labor. Slavery, 
he said, was enormously profitable by rea- 
son of the rapid and sure increase in the 
slaves, which made a man wealthy in the 
course of some years, even if he produced 
only enough to feed and clothe them. He 
told me that in this State, before the war*, 
a full-handed laborer could be hired for one 
hundred and fifty dollars per annum, with 
rations, clothing, and medicine. At this 
rate slave labor was probably, for this re- 
gion, very little, if any, dearer than free. 

An intelligent Republican told me that ho 
thought not one in ten of the agricultural 
negroes owned a working mule. This shows 
them to be poorer than their fellows in the 
South-western States ; but they have here a 
much poorer soil, and have to spend some 
money for manure. 

A good hand in the tobacco country re- 
ceives fifteen dollars per month. In all cases 
they have a cabin, land enough for a vege- 
table garden, and usually Saturday after- 
noon to work it, with the use of the mule 
and plow. Some planters believed that at 
least half the agricultural force (negro) in 
the State work for wages. 

There are many colored mechanics, and 
they are all thrifty people, and very com- 
monly own the houses they live in, and often 
a town lot besides. In the cotton country, 
an increasing number of colored men own 
farms of from forty to a hundred acres, but 
many of these were free before the war. In 
the towns and villages the colored people 
have a prosperous look ; they dress neatly, 
and very commonly live in frame houses. 
On the whole, their condition appears to me 
very comfortable and satisfactory. 



100 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



They have everywhere in the State, I am 
told, their fair proportion of schools ; and 
here in Ealeigh the colored people are, in 
general, more anxious to send their chil- 
dren to school than the poorer whites. The 
school system of the State is not in a very 
good condition. There are 369,960 children 
between six and twenty-one years, accord- 
ing to the school census of 1874, of whom 
242,768 are white, and 127,192 black. There 
were in that year 4020 public schools open, 
attended by 119,083 white and 55,000 col- 
ored children, under 2108 white and 767 col- 
ored teachers. I believe whites teach in 
some of the colored schools. The schools 
cost during the year $278,000. At Raleigh 
there is an excellent colored academy, and 
this is in part supported by contributions 
from citizens of other States. There were, 
in 1874, 2350 white and 999 colored schools. 

I have spoken above of the lack of prosper- 
ity of the planter class, and I must add that 
the farmers, on the contrary, are generally 
prosperous. The tobacco farmers have made 
good and very remunerative crops for some 
years, and in general the small farmers, I be- 
lieve, were never better off than now. The 
towns, too, are growing ; there are more 
shops, and there is more demand in all the 



farming parts of the State for mechanics. 
More money circulates in the community, I 
am assured, than ever before, and it passes 
through more hands. Here, as elsewhere in 
the South, the retail dealer is jirosperous; 
and the surplus capital or savings of the 
people, which were formerly invested in 
slaves, now take the shape of houses and 
shops and valuable improvements of all 
kinds. If the credit of the State were re- 
stored, there would be an opportunity for 
the development of its rich and almost un- 
touched mineral resources. New enterprises 
of this kind are needed to give more profit- 
able employment to the poor white class, 
which in some respects lags behind the 
negro. ' 

The colored man, having no pride of race 
to contend with, has one advantage : he can 
do any kind of honest work without losing 
public respect — black boots, run errands, or 
perform house-service ; and I imagine that 
the civilizing influence of house -service, 
which brings the colored people in contact 
with the better class of whites, not only en- 
ables them to live better, but also to acquire 
better and more elevating ideas than the 
children of the poor whites, who often live 
in poverty and in wretched hovels. 



GEORGIA IN JULY, 1875. 



"Georgia," said a Federal office-holder 
to me, a Kepublicao, and long resident in 
the State, " is still a rude community. In 
the country districts ^he people are what 
you would call careless of law, and apt to 
take revenge into their own hands." And 
he instanced to me two acts of assassination 
which had occurred within six months at 
no great distance from Atlanta, the victims 
being old citizens, prominent men, and Dem- 
ocrats. One was waylaid and shot on the 
road, the other was shot while sitting in his 
house at night. " Politics," said this Fed- 
eral office-holder, who is a strong Kepub- 
lican, "has nothing to do with such crimes. 
Such things occur not unfrequently, though 
by no means constantly ; but they haj)pen 
because our people are, in the main, not much 
above them. If a man offends or wrongs 
another, this other takes the law into his 
own hands." 

" There has been no political crime, prop- 
erly so called, in this State for two or three 
years," said another Federal office-holder 
to me, also a zealous Kepublican, and in a 
position where he had the opportunity to 
know whereof he spoke. " There is a good 
deal of crime in the State, but it is not po- 
litical. The general community is apathet- 
ic ; tlio magistrates often are not active in 
ferreting out criminals, for fear of taking 
harm themselves. Matters are improving; 
but still rude men in the country districts 
are too apt to take the law in their own 
hands. Negroes are generally more openly 
attacked than white men when they become 
the subjects of dislike by others, but other- 
wise there is no difference. The negro, usu- 
ally, will not defend himself, and thus en- 
courages attack. The white man is more 
formidable, and so his opponent lies in wait 
for him." 

He gave me, as an example, the case of a 
negro who complained to a United States 
officer that a white man had beaten him 



over the head with a stick. The negro's hog 
had got into his white neighbor's garden ; 
whereupon the beating, and the request 
from the black for the interference of the 
United States Government. " "Who saw the 
man beat you?" " Nobody, sah." "Were 
you and he alone ?" " Yes, sah." " And you 
stood still and let him beat you ?" was the 
officer's pertinent question. " Now," said he 
to me, " you see, this black man was then 
and there openly beaten. If it had been a 
white man, his antagonist would have lain 
in wait for him after night and done him 
some severe injury. But it is not political." 

On the day I came to Atlanta news came 
there that a United States deputy-marshal 
had been shot through both legs, and had 
had his horse shot, in a northern county. 
This looked a good deal like Ku-klux, and I 
have seen such cases reported as Ku-klus 
outrages. But the marshal told me his dep- 
uty was engaged in ferreting out illicit 
distilleries. He had just captured and de- 
stroyed two or three, and the enraged own- 
ers took their revenge on him. This busi- 
ness of illegal distilling is followed to a 
great extent iu the mountain region of 
Georgia and North Carolina, and by Eepub- 
licans as well as Democrats, of course ; and 
these people hate the sight of a deputy- 
marshal, and do not hesitate to shoot at him, 
regardless of politics. 

Petit larceny is here, as in other cotton 
States, the principal and the most vexatious 
offense of the plantation negro. " They are 
an excellent working force," said more than 
one planter to me ; " but they will steal cat- 
tle, hogs, and many other things." This 
crime is very severely punished in Georgia 
— they are relentless toward it — and it re- 
sults that negroes are sent to the peniten- 
tiary and the chain-gang for very long pe- 
riods for it. The severity of the sentences. 
would be with us inhuman ; but the crime is 
so serious and frequent, I am satisfied that it 



102 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



must be checked witli a strong baud. I was 
amused to discover tbat iu mauy cases em- 
ployers refused to prosecute tbeir servauts 
for tbeft, on tbe grouud, as iu more tbau 
one instance tbey frankly but privately con- 
fessed to me, tbat tbey " did not like to be 
tbe cause of sucb severe punisbmeut ;" aud 
tbis feeling will, I suspect, work its effect 
by-and-by, in causing milder punisbmeuts 
to be favored. 

Tbere are only very few counties iu Geor- 
gia in wbicb colored men are drawn for jury 
duty. Tbe constitution of tbe State, made 
by Kepublicans, declares tbat " tbe General 
Assembly sball provide by law for tbe selec- 
tion of uprigbt and intelligent persons to 
serve as jurors. Tbere sball be no distinc- 
tion between tbe classes of persons wbo com- 
pose grand and petit jurors." 

Tbis seems to me an admirable regulation, 
but I do not tbink it is fairly administered. 
Tbere is no doubt tbat it properly excludes 
tbe great mass of tbe negroes, and also a great 
many wbites ; and I am told tbat juries are 
generally carefully selected. But tbere are 
certainly in tbe large towns a few colored 
men wbo answer to tbe definition of " up- 
rigbt and intelligent," and tbese ougbt to be 
included in tbe jury-lists. In Atlanta, tbe 
other day, tbe colored people made up a list 
of one hundred and fifty names of men of 
color whom tbey regarded as fit jurymen, 
and presented it to tbe Ordinary, that he 
might select from it some names for tbe jury- 
box, which, as I understaud, is drawn for two 
years' service. Tbey now assert that no at- 
tention was paid to tbeir request. I spoke 
on tbis subject with an uucommouly intelli- 
gent Georgian, a planter aud business-man ; 
he said tbat in his county the negroes com- 
plained of tbeir exclusion, but be thought 
it wise. " The most intelligeut of them are 
often tbe worst," be said ; " and to tbe ne- 
gro tbe jury-box, with its handsome daily 
pay, seems heavenly. Tbey would all like 
to serve on juries." 

Tbis last is true enough. The plantation 
negro naturally likes jury duty; and tbe pay, 
two or three dollars a day, seems to him 
princely ; while, of course, be is shamefully 
unfit. Nevertheless tbe wholesale exclusion 
is neither right nor wise ; aud it is one of 
tbe causes why so mauy negroes have emi- 
grated from tbe State. Of course, the most 
intelligent leave first. 

You bear a good deal of complaint, both 
among planters aud iu tbe cities, about the 



unsteadiness of tbe negro as laborer or house- 
servant. I was a little puzzled at tbis at 
first, because iu other States I heard but 
very few sucb complaints. But a number 
of jilanters and citizens later explained to 
me the cause. " Whoever pays bis black la- 
borers regularly and honestly can get as 
many as he wants at all times, aud tbey 
will work faithfully," said a South Georgian 
planter to me — a rough man, whose conver- 
sation in some respects impressed me unfa- 
vorably. "Come down into my country," 
be added, "aud I'll show you plautatious 
standing idle, whose owners will tell you 
that the nigger won't work ; aud I'll show 
you plantations right along- side of them 
where one hundred hands work faithfully 
year after year, and don't think of moving 
away. All you've got to do is to pay them 
honestly aud sell them nothing, aud you 
won't complain. I don't keep a store. I 
make the niggers go off to tbe village. That's 
what tbey want, and I pay cash — that's all 
tbey want ; and I can get one hundred extra 
bauds whenever I like ; and I'm not an easy- 
going man, either." 

Tbe same story I beard from citizens. 
" Where a man complains tbat his servants 
leave him, you'll find tbat bis wife has paid 
them in driblets — a dollar now, and half a 
dollar another time. They don't understand 
accounts ; they are sjtendtbrifts ; and at tbe 
end of tbe mouth, when tbey have but little 
due them, tbey tbink tbey have been cheat- 
ed, aud go oft" dissatisfied. I suifered in this 
way for a while ; but now I pay them their 
whole month's wages punctually at noon on 
tbe day tbeir month is out, aud they never 
leave me. Punctual and honest pay is all 
that is needed to make them faithful aud 
steady servants." Similar testimony I re- 
ceived from a number of persons of both 
sexes. Irregularity of pay, and often the 
failure to pay wages, have been another fruit- 
ful cause of the large negro emigration from 
the State. 

A law of tbe State deprives a man of bis 
vote at an election wbo has not paid his 
taxes for the year previous. Tbere is a poll- 
tax of one dollar. " Tbis," said a Republic- 
an to me, " works badly agaiust our party, 
because tbe negroes evade its payment, or 
are careless about it, or lose tbeir tax -re- 
ceipts, and then tbeir vote is rigorously 
challenged, aud tbey lose it." 

"Half tbe negroes iu Georgia are disfran- 
chised for non-payment of tbeir iJoU-tax," V 



GEORGIA IN JULY, 1875. 



103 



■n-as the assertion of another and a zealous 
Eepublican, a leading man in the party. 
" Many whites do not pay either," he added; 
"but the Republicans do not challenge as 
rigorously as the Democrats." 

A number of Republicans complained of 
this law to me as though it were wrong or 
unfair ; but I think, on the contrary, it is 
just and right. If a voter neglects or re- 
fuses to pay his poll-tax, certainly he is not 
fit to cast a vote. By-the-way, a Republic- 
an in North Carolina owned to me that so 
remiss were the colored people there in pay- 
ing their poll-tax, that if failure to pay there 
forfeited the vote, two-thirds of the negroes 
in the State would be disfranchised. 

Aside from this perfectly just reason for 
disfranchising a voter, I am persuaded that 
in Georgia other means have been used to 
overcome the colored vote — means not at 
all justifiable. In some cities, for instance, 
as in Atlanta and Savannah, insufficient vot- 
iug-boxes are provided, and the negro voters 
are crowded out and prevented from casting 
their fall vote. A candid planter whom I 
questioued upon this subject — he living in 
a county which had a black majority, but 
had been for some years ruled, honestly, I 
must add, by Democrats — said, "We had 
white Republican county officers, natives; 
we discovered that they were corrupt. They 
kept the county offices for themselves, but 
were teady enough to let a negro go to the 
Legislature, where the Democratic majority 
left no chance for stealing. As we could get 
no county reform by arguments or appeals 
to the negroes, who were as three and a half 
to one white voter, we made up our minds 
to buy the black leaders, who fooled their 
people with imitation Republican tickets. 
Later, we bought over also some of the wliite 
leaders, and others we put in jail when we 
could prove corruption against them. 'Wg 
have had a struggle for it, because some 
oven of our own men proved corrupt, and 
wo had to pitch them overboard. But we 
have managed to maintain a pretty good 
government." 

In another case I was told, " We can al- 
ways elect a Democrat to the Legislature. 
There is no stealing there, and neither the 
negro leaders nor the corrupt whites care to 
go there. The struggle is over the county 
offices. In my county and iu others, I do not 
doubt there has been ballot-box stuffing. 
This was unknown among us before the 
war, and it is one of the bad things that 



wiU be left here, arising out of the new or- 
der of things. I don't justify it, and I very 
deeply regret it ; for, once introduced, it will 
continue to be practiced ; but where the 
blacks are in a large majority, they are the 
means of very serious robbery, and men are 
apt to think that any thing is justifiable to 
save themselves from such gross misgovern- 
ment." 

In yet another case a planter said to me, 
" The Republicans began in my county with 
Union Leagues, and these became quickly 
the prey of vagabond and corrupt whites, 
almost without exception, natives, for we 
have had few carpet-baggers in our local pol- 
itics. You could not buy a member of the 
Union League ; but we found we could easily 
buy the leaders, and this we did do. These 
leagues are now almost entirely broken up. 
The negroes have discovered that the white 
leaders were corrupt ; but they stick to their 
black leaders, some of whom are sharp but 
generally unscruxiulous men." 

I give these statements, because they de- 
scribe pretty accurately what has been done 
in many counties where the negroes have a 
majority of votes. The whites have been 
determined to keep the local governments 
in their own hands, and they have used 
means which the better class do not attempt 
to justify, except upon the plea that no oth- 
er meaus were available to save themselves 
from the hands of thieves. That the negro 
voter has been, to an extraordinary degree, 
the prey of demagogues and scoundrels, 
wherever in the South he has had a consid- 
erable majority, no one can doubt who has 
examined the question. His ignorant at- 
tachment to the Republican name, and his 
readiness to follow black leaders, who are 
easily coiTuptible, and low whites who flat- 
ter him, have made him the tool of robbers. 
That the whites, wherever they can, should 
protect themselves, even by counter-frauds, 
is lamentable but natural. I wonder it has 
not been more universally practiced in oth- 
er States. That intimidation and crowding- 
out at the polls should be practiced is not 
at all remarkable, under the circumstances. 

Governor Smith seemed to me to speais 
sensibly when he told me that these evils 
could be cured only by a division of parties 
off the color- line, which he thought must, 
before long, come about. 

The other meaus used, however, have, I 
believe, made actual intimidation rare in 
the last two or three years, except here and 



104 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



there iu some uncommonly rough and law- 
less county, -where it would be practiced 
upon whites as well, if the white vote were 
divided. Georgia has a few such counties, 
where society is not in a pleasant condi- 
tion, where violence is frequent ; and here 
the negro suflfers probably oftener than the 
white, because he does not defend himself. 
But emigration is emptying these counties 
of the negroes. It is a sure cure, moreover, 
even in these counties. I have been told by 
Republicans of some cases where the perpe- 
trators of violence upon an unoffending ne- 
gro found the public sentiment, to their sur- 
prise, so changed of late that they thought 
it prudent to leave the State. I believe this 
better sentiment is caused, in part at least, 
by the fiict that jilauters iu such localities 
see their laboring force removing to other 
States. 

It may seem to you that the condition of 
the negro in Georgia is not happy, under all 
these circumstances ; and yet here is proof 
that such a judgment would be mistaken. 
It is not difficult to hear of iustances of 
abuse ; but the best and conclusive proof 
that these are only sporadic cases, and that, 
in general, the colored people are safe in 
their lives and property, is found in an offi- 
cial report of the comptroller-general of the 
State, for 1874, giving the character and val- 
ue of property and amount of taxes returned 
by colored tax -payers for that year. The 
number of colored polls listed was 83,318. 
These returned an aggregate value of tax- 
able property amounting to .f6,157,798, on 
which they actually paid $30,788 in taxes. 
They owned 338,769 acres of agricultural 
laud, and city and town property to the 
amount of $1,200,115. 

Now, remembering that these people were 
slaves only nine years before; that they 
owned, when they obtained their freedom in 
1865, absolutely nothing excej)t what they 
stood in; and that they have not only ac- 
quired all this property in seven years, but 
lived, spent a great deal of money in foolish 
ways, and lost, I do not know how many 
thousands, in the Freedmen's Savings-bank, 
I think it clearly establishes that, first, they 
have labored with creditable industry and 
perseverance, and, second, that they have 
been fairly protected in their rights of life 
and property by the Democratic rulers of 
the State. I do not think the colored people 
in any other State I have visited own half 
as much real estate, or, indeed, a quarter as 



much, as those of Georgia. Surely this says 
a good deal for the effective justice and 
protection given the negro in this Demo- 
cratic State. 

At least twenty- five thousand colored 
people have left the State in the last five or 
six years. In Atlanta I had some conversa- 
tion with a negro who had been one of the 
leaders iu this movement, and he gave me 
a number of iustances where colored farm- 
ers had removed to Mississii^pi or Arkansas, 
taking with them mules and farm-tools, iu 
some cases enough to fill two or three cars. 
This man remarked to me that when he was 
younger, and during slavery times, he had 
noticed that many white iieople, even plant- 
ers' sons, removed from the State, and when 
any of them returned for a visit home, they 
proved usually to have prospered by the 
change. " I thought if it was good for the 
whites, it would be good for our folks too," 
he said ; " and so I always encouraged all 
that wanted to try it." 

He had started a son-in-law to Louisiana, 
where, after two years, he found him pros- 
pering. He had visited Arkansas and Mis- 
sissippi also, and confirmed to me my own 
observations that in these States the color- 
ed people thrive, and are generally secure iu 
their rights. Ho thought Arkansas the best 
of all the States for his people, but showed 
'. me also pamphlets recommending certain 
parts of Mississippi, which he was distribut- 
iug among his peoj)le. 

I do not know, by -the -way, what better 
evidence one can have than this of the gen- 
erally satisfactory condition of the colored 
people in those States. The testimony of 
a colored man — a sufficiently shrewd fellow 
I judged him, who had traveled through the 
regions he spoke of, and whom I saw, from 
his conversation, to be a stickler for the 
"rights" of his people — ought to go very 
far to satisfy Northern people. Such disor- 
ders as are now happening iu Mississippi 
will injure that State, but they are strictly 
local and sporadic. 

He told me, what I knew otherwise also, 
that emigration agents come into Georgia 
from different counties in the three States I 
have named in search of laborers. I know 
myself a single couuty iu Northern Louisi- 
ana which has drawn in the last seven years 
not less than four thousand colored people 
from Georgia and Alabama. These agents 
make known the fact that rich lands lie 
open in the sections they represent, and, not 



GE(;RGIA IN JULY, 1875. 



103 



unfrequently, tLey are ready to pay the ex- 
pense of a family's removal. The late fall 
and winter, after the crops are made, is the 
season of removal ; and the man I speak of 
thought, from what he knew, that not less 
than five thousand would leave the State 
next winter. This, bear in mind, was long 
before the so-called insurrection. 

I confess that, to me, this readiness to bet- 
ter their fortunes by emigration seemed one 
of the best signs I saw in the South of the 
real independence of the negro ; and I found 
it most fully developed in the very State 
where, according to the commonly received 
reports of Southern Republican politicians, 
the negro is still in a condition little better 
than slavery. If this were true, of course 
he would not be moving away, for he would 
be tied to the soil. 

Nor do I believe that Georgia wiU sustain 
a serious loss by this emigration. It will 
make room for white emigrants; and Geor- 
gia is peculiarly fitted to receive and utilize 
a white farming and manufacturing popula- 
tion. It is not prosier ly a planting, but a 
manufacturing, State. 

I recur for a moment to the remarkable 
return of over six millions of property owned 
by the negroes o^ Georgia, to say that it is 
the only official report of the kind I have 
found in any Southern State. Arkansas, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, long under 
Republican rulers, yielded me no such infor- 
mation. Only in Democratic Georgia had 
the rulers sufficient intelligent curiosity to 
ascertain what practical progress the negro 
had made under freedom. 

The result is, of course, very gratifying 
and surprising. It speaks well for the ne- 
gro's industry, and his growing power of ac- 
cumulation, and it speaks well for the jus- 
tice and fair dealing of the whites toward 
the blacks. 

Georgia has at this moment but one Re- 
publican journal, and that is a weekly — ■ 
the National licpvhlican — printed in Atlanta. 
From that I take the following editorial 
connuent on the condition of the colored 
people. It seems to me a little harsh, but 
it comes from a Republican : 

"What is the record of ten years of freedom ? In the 
matter of temperance has there been progress ? Nay, 
in this respect the freedmen are a thousand per cent, 
worse off than they were in slavery. Rarely do we 
find a strictly temperate man. Very nearly all drink, 
in town and out, youn<^ men and old, and the women 
too. Thousands spend a dollar for whisky throu_:;h 
the week, and on the Sabbath put a nickel or nothing 
in the contributiou-bos. The freedmeu of Georgia 



spend in a half-year for liquor as much as they have 
paid for schools since emancipation. Is this a matter 
of which they should be proud ? To whom is the in- 
fliction of this wrong due? What has been done for 
schools? A little money has been raised, but not a 
hundredth, if a thousandth, part of what has been spent 
for tobacco, and shows, and shot-guns, and flues. One 
show here last winter is said to have carried away 
$3000 of the colored people's money— more than their 
voluntary contributions to schools in this city since 
1S65. In ten years not more than one in nine or ten 
has learned to read in the State; or out of 550,000 not 
more than 60,000 or 70,000; and these very largely 
through the aid of Northern missions. This year tax- 
es will be paid on an aggregate of $7,000,000 of prop- 
erty, or less than $13 a head. This is the showing of 
a decade of freedom and fair opportunity. For it, in 
some measure, the whites may be responsible, but the 
responsibility lies chiefly with the people themselves. 
They have probably earned from $35,000,000 to $45,- 
000,000 a year, and out of it should have saved a large 
percentage. But there has been improvidence and 
waste on every hand. Not quite, but very nearly, as 
poor and ignorant are the freedmeu to-day as when 
emancipated; and their ignorance and their poverty, 
quite as much as the 'prejudice and hate' of the whites, 
serve to keep them where they are and what they are 
— hewers of wood and drawers of water." 

If a Democratic journal had said these 
things it would have been called prejudice, 
and I should not have thought of quoting 
it. They are the words of the Republican 
and colored organ. 

"While I am speaking of the Democratic 
management of the State, I think it right to 
call attention to the satisfactory financial 
statement, which compares remarkably with 
the condition of Louisiana, Arkansas, and 
other Southern States which have been un- 
der Republican control. The State debt is 
but $8,000,000, and the credit of the State 
stands high in New York and abroad. In 
January of this year there was a surplus iu 
the treasury of over $1,000,000. The total 
cost of the State government for 1874 was 
but $776,000, while the mileage, per diem, 
and contingents of the Louisiana Republican 
Legislature in 1871 cost $958,950 ; and- the 
State printing cost $431,000 in one year. 

The counties have no debts of any conse- 
quence. The cities have some, but not a 
very heavy indebtedness. 

It is altogether such a showing as these 
Democrats need not be ashamed of. It has 
one weak spot only — the expenditure for 
schools. Georgia had no free schools before 
the war, and the system makes but slow 
headway in the State. The present super- 
intendent of public instruction (a Democrat) 
is a zealous and efficient officer, and he looks 
forward to better days. 

There was apportioned by him for the sup- 
port of schools in 1874 only $265,000, and the 
schools are open, in general, less than three 



106 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



mouths in the year. For the present year 
the. school-tax will yield only $270,000. Last 
year there were 135,000 children in the pub- 
lic schools — an increase of 50,000 over 1873. 
In 1873 there were actually attending school 
only 63,922 white, and 19,755 colored chil- 
dren ; in 1874 the numbers stood 93,167 white 
and 42,374 colored children. This was out 
of a total of 218,733 white, and 175,304 col- 
ored children within the school ages. 

There is still in many counties some prej- 
udice against colored schools, but it con- 
stantly decreases ; and you will notice that 
more than twice as many colored chiklren 
attended schools in 1874 as in 1873. Atlanta 
has a colored university, and the Legislature 
appropriates yearly toward its support $8000 
— the same amount which is given to the 
old State University. The governor and 
superintendent of schools both desire that 
this appropriation shall be diverted to a col- 
ored normal school ; and there is some igno- 
rant prejudice in Atlanta against the teach- 
ers in the university, on the ground of their 
sitting at table with the colored students, 
which is thought to promote " social equal- 
ity." It is not denied, however, that the 
school does good work ; and I imagine the 
teachers can best instruct the pupils in the 
minor morals by eating at the same table 
with tbcni. 

One can not help feeling a little contempt 
for the people who here in the South make 
themselves needlessly unhappy about " so- 
cial equality." I was amused at a sensible 
lilanter — a Democrat, and a native Geor- 
gian — who said to me, " It is absurd in us 
to make such a fuss. There is scarcely a man 
of us whose children are not suckled by ne- 
gro nurses ; our playmates were negro boys ; 
all our relations in the old times were of 
the most intimate ; and, for my part, I would 
as soon ride in a car with a cleanly dressed 
negro as with a white man. It is all stupid 
nonsense, and makes us absurd in the eyes 
of sensible people." 

^ The feeling takes the most ridiculous 
forms, too : for instance, in Atlanta and Au- 
gusta colored peoi)le are allowed to ride in 
street-cars ; in Savannah they are forbidden. 
Why the difference ? Is a Savannah negro 
less clean, or is a Savaunah white man a 
more noble being, than those in the other 
two cities ? 

As showing the relations of the two races, 
I found on a wall in Augusta a iioster giv- 
ing notice of a colored railroad-excursion to 



Port Eoyal, stating price of passage and 
time required, and at the end a notice that 
a special car would be jDrovided for such of 
the white citizens as would like to take ad- 
vantage of this opportunity to see Port Roy- 
al, and special accommodations for their 
comfort would be at hand. The whole affair 
was under the conduct of colored men. 

The superintendent of schools told me" 
that there was less prejudice against colored 
schools in the southern counties, where the 
negroes are the most numerous, than in the 
northern part of the State. 

The negroes in and near the cities and 
towns are usually prosperous. There are 
many colored mechanics, and they receive 
full wages where they are skillful. Near At- 
lanta and other places they own small 
"truck-farms," and supply the market with 
vegetables. There are fewer black than 
white beggars in the cities ; and a mission- 
ary clergyman surprised me by the remark 
that the blackberry crop, which was ripen- 
ing, was " a blessing to dozens of poor white 
families whom he knew," who lived half 
the year, he said, in a condition of semi- 
starvation. He explained that these people 
would not only sell blackberries, but that in 
the season they largely lived on this fruit. 
These are the kind of peoj)le to whom fac- 
tories would be a blessing. 

In the cotton country the i)lanter usually 
pays his hands ten dollars a month, by the 
year, with a house and ration. The ration 
consists of three pounds of bacon, a peck of 
meal, and a pint of molasses per week. The 
laborer has also a "patch" of land for a 
garden, and Saturday afternoon for himself, 
with the use of the planter's mules and tools 
to work the garden. They work from sun- 
rise to sunset, and in the summer have two 
and a half hours for dinner. The cotton- 
j)ickers receive fifty cents per one hundred 
pounds in the seed, and are fed ; or sixty -five 
cents per one hundred pounds, if they feed 
themselves. The ration costs about fifteen 
cents a day. 

Most planters keep a small store, and sell 
their laborers meat, bread, and tobacco on 
credit, the general settlement being made 
once a year. The women receive for field 
work six dollars a month and a ration ; and 
I was told that they insist on receiving their 
own wages, and will not let their husbands 
use their money. They form an important 
extra force for pressing work. 

One of the most intelligent planters I met 



GEORGIA IN JULY, 1375. 



107 



in. the State told rue that bis laborers cost 
him about fifteen dollars a month — wages 
and ration. He added (-what surprised me) 
that the best planters prefer to i^ay wages 
rather than let their land on shares, and 
that the wages system was growing in favor 
also with the negroes. I found this con- 
firmed by other testimony. It is very differ- 
ent in the other States I have seen, except, 
indeed, North Carolina ; and I imagine the 
poverty of the soil is a main reason for it. 
In Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, the 
planters told me it would be poor i)olicy to 
pay wages. Certainly, it is the poorest sys- 
tem for the negro. 

Where the negroes plant on shares, the 
planter furnishes the land and mules, and 
feeds the mules. The negro furnishes labor 
and feeds it, and gets one -third the crop. 
He pays for one-third of the fertilizers. The 
planter gins the whole crop. Where negroes 
rent land, they pay seven hundred and fifty 
pounds of lint or ginned cotton for thirty- 
five to forty acres of land — as much as they 
can cultivate with one mule — and they keep 
up the fences, and pay for the fertilizers. 
" On this lay," said a planter to mo, " I know 
one man who made two hundred and fifty 
dollars clear in a year over and above his 
support, and another who lost one hundred 
and fifty dollars." He added that the ne- 
groes, on the whole, preferred the wages 
system ; and this is mainly, I imagine, be- 
cause the artificial manures are costly, and 
an uncertain element in making the crop. 
This means really, of course, that it costs 
more money to make cotton in Georgia than 
in the other States I have named. A third 
of a bale to the acre is the average crop in 
Georgia, but in Mississippi they expect to 
get from three-quarters to a bale per acre 
without manure. 

A planter from one of the " black coun- 
ties," where the negroes are most numer- 
ous, told mo they were a most quiet and 
docile population. " I live iu the midst of 
several hundred," he said, "with no white 
family within several miles of me, and my 
people are never in the least alarmed. I 
have not a fire-arm in the house half the 
time. Treat them honestly," he said, " and 
they are all right." 

This man amused me with some stories 
of how the blacks were deceived by a set 
of white rascals for some years after the war. 
Among other things, these fellows brought 
red and blue sticks, which they sold for one 



dollar each to the negroes, wherewith to 
" stake oft"" the laud which the Government 
was to give them. The blacks used also, 
when they went to the polls to vote, to 
bring halters with them, for the mule which 
General Grant was to give them. I would 
like to know what graceless wretch it was 
who spread all over the South, among the 
blacks, the story of "forty acres and a mule," 
which has caused bitter disappointment to 
many thousands of credulous negroes, and 
appears to have been used mainly to induce 
them to vote the EeiJublican ticket. In 
Louisiana, several negroes told me that Gen- 
eral Butler, they understood, would make 
them this gift ; but usually it is from Gen- 
eral Grant that they expect it, and they are 
very ready to vote for him. 

The jilauter of whom I speak told me 
that the young negroes who had grown up 
siuce the war worked less steadily than the 
old hands. He added that, in his county, 
some blacks owned as much as two hundred 
and iifty acres of land, and many were doing 
well on their own farms. " If it were not 
for petit larceny, they would all do well." 
He kept a coloi'cd school on his own planta- 
tion. The black people liked it, he said. 
They are fond of hoarding coin, esjiecially 
siuce the Freedmen's Bank failed, which 
caused loss to many of them, and they are 
quite ready to buy gold and silver coin at 
a premium. 

The negroes in Georgia have some, but 
slight and lessening, causes for dissatisfac- 
tion. The fact that they wiU pay taxes on 
over seven millions of dollars this year, all 
acquired siuce 18CG, and by a class notorious- 
ly unthrifty, shows that they have suffer- 
ed no serious wrong or injustice. The fact 
that over twenty-five thousand negroes have 
emigrated from the State, shows also that 
they know how to better their condition. 

But their dissatisfaction does not arise 
from wrongs ; for the whites also are dis- 
satisfied, and an equal number of them have 
removed to other States. The chief diflicul- 
ty in Georgia is that it is an old State, with 
worn lauds, whose near neighbors, Mississip- 
pi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, invite its peo- 
ple to come and take possession of new and 
fertile soils, where they need no manures, 
and can get greater returns for their labor. 

Georgia and North Carolina differ from 
the other Southern States I have seen in 
this : that much of their land is thin and 
worn, and will not produce a crop, even iu 



108 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



the cotton region, "svithout the use of expen- 
sive manures. This, of course, makes cotton- 
plautiug less remunerative than it is in the 
rich bottom-lands of Mississippi, Arkansas, 
and Louisiana. Moreover, judging from ap- 
pearances, I should say that even in the old 
times, before the war, Georgia must have 
been a less wealthy State than those west 
of it. 

One evidence of a general lack of prosper- 
ity in this State I came upon even before I 
entered Georgia, is the considerable number 
of emigrants of both colors, who are leaving 
the State for Arkansas, Texas, and Missis- 
sippi, and parties of whom I frequently spoke 
with at railroad stations. Georgia has lost 
in this way, since the conclusion of the war, 
I have been told by good authorities. Dem- 
ocratic citizens, at least fifty thousand i^eo- 
ple — half of each color. 

The fact is that Georgia, though it is still 
essentially an agricultural State, has its 
greatest future as a manufacturing region. 
It has a great deal of valuable water-power ; 
also coal, iron, and other mineral wealth ; it 
has a great deal of land better fitted for 
small farms and varied agriculture than for 
either cotton or corn ; and it has ready 
to the hands of manufacturing capitalists 
a numerous population of " poor whites," 
whose daughters make excellent factory op- 
eratives, and to whom the offer of this spe- 
cies of labor is a real rise in the scale of civ- 
ilization. 

The cotton-planters are not, as a class, 
either wealthy or prosperous ; but the few 
cotton-factories are, even in this day of gen- 
eral depression, very remunerative. The iron 
and coal works are in a good condition, and 
the farmers of Northern Georgia are said to 
be doing well in all respects. I have been 
surprised by the unbroken prosperity of 
the cotton -mills in Georgia. The Augusta 
mills have paid a yearly dividend of not 
less than twenty per cent, since 1865, and 
the stock is quoted at 168 to-day, and none 
is for sale. The product is 275,000 yards per 
week. The Eagle and Phcenix mills of Co- 
lumbus, built since the war, with a capital 
of |;l,000,000 and 25,000 spindles, have paid 
an average dividend of over eighteen per 
cent., and have a considerable surplus. No 
stock can be bought. The Graniteville cot- 
ton-mills, which lie in South Carolina, just 
across the border-line of Georgia, were not 
fairly started until 1867 ; and since then, I 
am told, have paid off a debt of $75,000, in- 



creased their capacity from 15,000 to 23,000 
spindles, built over forty houses for opera- 
tives, and have meantime paid an average 
dividend of over twelve per cent. 

But all these mills have done a more im- 
portant work besides ; for all of them give 
employment to the girls and women of the 
poor white class, to whom such labor is, as I 
have said, a real and very important step in 
civilization. They make excellent opera- 
tives, I am told, and the factory life not only 
improves their own condition in a remark- 
able degree, but adds greatly to the comfort 
of their parents ; and is, perhajis, the only 
means of redeeming this large population 
from a somewhat abject and degraded con- 
dition. 

I think I can see that the cotton-manu- 
facturer has several important advantages 
in this State over his rivals in the Northern 
States. He needs no such solid aud costly 
dwellings for the work-people ; land is still 
cheap ; lumber for building is cheap ; fuel 
is unusually cheap ; the operative class is, I 
suspect, more manageable, and more easily 
made intelligent, than the rude, imported 
labor now used in the North ; food is, aud 
must long remain, cheaper; the mildness of 
the winter is certainly an advantage, and 
there is an air of comfort and contentment 
about these Southern factories which is very 
pleasing. The operatives are usually very 
nicely lodged in cottages, and are evidently 
happy aud pleased with their life. 

It is among the factory workers and the 
small farmers of Georgia that one finds the 
chief prosperity of the State. Here there is 
little or no debt ; money circulates rapidly ; 
improvements are seen ; and there arepatieut, 
hopeful labor, thrift, and enterprise, which 
affect, as it seems to me, the whole popula- 
tion. I heard here and there of instances 
of poor young mechanics working steadily 
and earnestly, in a New England way, at 
their trades, making labor respectable, ac- 
cumulating property, and taking honorable 
places in their communities ; and some such 
men talked to me of their past and their 
future, of the hopeful change which the ex- 
tinction of slavery had produced in the 
prospects of their class, in language which 
showed me that there is a new-born hope 
of better things in the poor white people of 
the State. 

When yon strike the cotton region, affairs 
are not so happy. In the first place, the 
cotton farmers aud planters — the large land- 



GEORGIA IN JULY, 1875. 



109 



owners, less energetic than the population 
I have spoken above — have suifered from 
two bad laws which fostered their lack of 
business capacity and love of ease. The 
Homestead Law reserves to a land-owner a 
homestead of the value of three thousand 
dollars in gold, exempting this from seizure 
by creditors. Of course, in an agricultural 
region, so large an exemption can be easily 
made to cover a very considerable amount 
of property. To this was added a lien law — 
fortunately repealed by the last Legislature 
— which enabled the planter to borrow on 
or mortgage his unplanted crop ; the factor 
who furnished him tools, manures, food, and 
clothing having, by this law, the first claim 
on the crop. Of course, he also secured the 
handling of it. I have seen the evil opera- 
tion of such a law in Louisiana in the slav- 
ery times, and in the Sandwich Islands more 
recently. It is ruinous, for it offers a prize 
to incapacity and unthrift, enables men to 
undertake planting with insufficient capital, 
and deranges the whole industry. In Geor- 
gia the Homestead Law doubtless increased 
the evils of the Lien Law ; and between the 
two it resulted that many of the planters 
fell over head and ears in debt. These were 
regularly a year or more behindhand ; and 
if the croj) — which is more precarious in 
this State than in some others — failed, or 
fell short, the factor took all ; and the labor- 
ers, employed to a great extent on wages, 
sometimes lost all their pay, except what 
they had consumed during the year. 

I do not doubt that in some cases such 
loss and wrong fell upon the negro laborer 
through the recklessness or dishonesty of the 
planter ; but I am satisfied also that much 
oftcner the planter would have honestly paid 
if he could, and that he, as well as his work- 
man, was the victim of a bad business sys- 
tem and of his lack of capital and of busi- 
ness thrift. It was one of the incidents of 
the reorganization of labor on a new basis 
in a State where the culture of cotton is less 
certainly remunerative than in more fertile 
regions. 

To ehow you how the Lien Law worked, 
here is a statement made to me by a planter 
of the charges which he had known to be 
paid for advances made by a factor. He in- 
stanced to me the case of a planter who re- 
quired from his factor a loan or advance of 
five thousand dollars to make his crop. For 
this he paid one per cent, per month, to 
which I was assured seven per cent, per an- 



num were sometimes added, making really 
nineteen per cent. Then the arrangement 
was that the factor should buy all the plant- 
ei-'s supplies for him ; and for this service he 
charged him two and a half per cent., and 
billed the goods to him at " time prices," 
which added eight or ten per cent, to their 
cost. Then the factor sold the planter's crop, 
and charged for this two and a half per cent, 
again. 

I should not have believed such a system 
possible, had I not seen jirecisely the same 
thing regularly done by the sugar -planters 
in the Sandwich Islands two or three years 
ago. Of course, no business except the slave- 
trade could bear such a drain. Some jilant- 
ers complained to me that they could never 
get advances from the banks, which preferred 
to lend to the factors; but this will hardly 
surprise any business man. The profits were 
great enough for the bank and the factors to 
divide. 

One of the natural results of this system 
has been discontent among the negroes — the 
laborers — who sometimes lost their wages. 
At least twenty-five thousand of them have 
left the State ; and this emigration, which 
last year already began to alarm the plant- 
ers, has not ceased. It has been increased 
by other causes ; but I am satisfied, from 
conversation with leading colored men, that 
the lack of prosperity here, and the well- 
founded belief that they could do better else- 
where, have been one of its main causes. 

The repeal of the Lien Law has, of course, 
left the poor and improvident among the 
planters without credit, and they are natu- 
rally in poor spirits. But they will present- 
ly see that it is their salvation. Already 
they are planting more com than ever be- 
fore. They see that to raise bread and meat 
enough for their laborers will keep them out 
of the hands of the factors. More corn will 
be harvested in the cotton region of Georgia 
this year than in any year since the war. 

I have given this statement of the indus- 
trial condition of Georgia because it is cer- 
tain that many of the incidents of Georgia 
society grow mainly out of the fact that the 
planting region is less prosperous than the 
cotton region of Arkansas, Louisiana, or Mis- 
sissippi ; and is so mainly for the reasons I 
have given — the poverty of the soil, the pre- 
cariousness of the crop in the far southern 
counties, where it is peculiarly exposed to 
the attacks of insects, and the poverty and 
unthrift of the planters. That you may not 



110 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



tliiuk I have overstated this lack of pros- 
perity, I give you here some figures fi'om a 
mercantile report, which I find in an Augus- 
ta journal. The business failures in the State 
amounted in the last six months to the sum 
of $2,956,215. This is a greater loss by far 
than is reported from any other Southern 
Stater; greater even than in South Carolina, 
as the following figures show : 

Alabama 1523,000 

Arkansas 211,000 

Florida 235,000 

Georgia 2,956,000 

Louisiana 630,000 

Mississippi 1,045,000 

North Carolina 263,000 

South Carolina 2,042,000 

Tennessee 325,000 

Texas 1,153,000 

Virginia and West Virginia 1,383,000 

Total $10,766,000 

The liabilities of Georgia amount to near- 
ly one-third of the liabilities of the twelve 
States ; the liabilities of Georgia and South 
Carolina together amount to nearly half the 
liabilities of the entire South. Georgia com- 
pares as follows with other larger and 
wealthier States: 

Indiana $1,860,000 

Iowa 436,000 

Kentucky 2,456,000 

Missouri 2,328,000 

Ohio 2,594,000 

Georgia 2,956,000 

Now, you must remember that, unlike 
Ohio, Indiana, or Missouri, Georgia is almost 
entirely an agricultural State, and that her 
factories and other purely business enter- 
prises have been, almost without exception, 
prosperous. These figures show the condi- 
tion mainly of the planting interest and of 
those businesses intimately related to it. 

I conclude my account of Georgia with a 
few remarks about the political condition 
of the State. 

There is no Republican party worthy of 
the name in the State. There is but one 
Republican newspaper, and that is a weekly. 
One of the most zealous Republicans in the 
State said to me, " The Republican party, so 
far as its white members are concerned, 
consists mainly of Federal office-holders and 
men seeking office — mostly natives of the 
State." He added, " There a-re not more than 
a hundred active white Republicans in Geor- 
gia who are honest, and out of office." An- 
other zealous Republican said to me, " The 
white Republicans of Georgia are made up 
almost entirely of Federal office-holders 
whose aim is to keep their places, and of 



men who are trying to get these places. 
There is substantially nobody else, white, 
in the party." Another said, " White men piif 
themselves forward for Congress on the Re- 
publican ticket, knowing they will be beat- 
en, with the sole object of rushing to Wash- 
ington as soon as the election is over to set 
up a claim for a Federal office on the ground 
of their defeat." "The Civil Rights Bill 
killed the Republican party in this State," 
said a Federal officer to me ; " it put us back 
to 1867." 

Less than five thousand whites voted the 
Republican ticket at the election of 1874. 
In 1872, a Republican told me, at least tea 
thousand blacks voted the Greeley ticket, 
and "more and more negroes vote Demo- 
cratic all the time." I notice that among 
the grievances of the blacks mentioned in 
discussions of the so-called insurrection, is 
one that they are disfranchised if they do not 
pay their poll and road taxes. This is per- 
fectly true, and, I think, perfectly just. PoU 
and road tax is all that the greater part of 
them pay toward the support of the Govern- 
ment; and if they evade this, they do not de- 
serve to vote. The same law applies to the 
whites. 

In the Georgia Congressional delegation 
there is not now a single Republican. One 
reason for this is, that in some cases the 
party nominates men who can not get the 
support of honest Republicans. One such 
man I was told of, who was repudiated by 
the honest Republicans of his district, but 
was no sooner beaten than he proceeded to 
Washington and set up a claim to all the 
Federal patronage of the district. Nor are 
claims of this kind always disallowed at 
Washington. For instance, not long ago a 
man was appointed collector of internal rev- 
enue in a Georgia district who, according to 
general Republican testimony, had been a 
Ku-klux in Ku-klux times, and who actually 
could not take the office because he then 
stood charged with offering a bribe. 

One of the most j)rominent Federal offi- 
cers in the State, a native and a zealous Re- 
publican, and bitter opponent of the Demo- 
cratic party, said to me, " I don't know that 
there is any Republican party in the State. 
The negroes will not vote in general, be- 
cause they have no white vote back of them. 
The blacks are almost totally disfranchised 
by their neglect to pay their taxes. At least 
two -thirds of the colored voters are thus 
disfranchised. Then, again, in some conn- 



GEORGIA IN JULY, 1875. 



in 



ties -where there are large negro majorities 
half a dozen black demagogues insist on 
running for the same office, and then Demo- 
crats run in between them. Wherever in- 
dependent tickets have been put up in coun- 
ties the supporters of these strove for the 
negro vote, and in such cases the election 
was always peaceable and full, because there 
two parties were anxious for this vote. I 
do not think that for a year or two past 
there has been much cheating in wages; the 
people have learned to do better." 

Georgia has been longer and more contin- 
uously than any other cotton State, since the 
war, under the rule of the Democratic pai'ty. 
Bullock, the Republican governor, chosen at 
the adoption of the constitution, in 1868, for 
a term of four years, abandoned his office 
and the State in October, 1871 ; Smith, Dem- 
ocrat, was elected to fill his unexpired term ; 
was re-elected in 1872, and is still governor. 
The Legislature, which is elected every two 
years, was Republican by a small majority 
in 1868 ; but the body which assembled in 
November, 1871, was strongly Democratic, 
and both houses, and all the executive offi- 
cers, have been Democratic ever since. 

It follows that, since the winter of 1871, 
the State government has been entirely in 
Democratic hands ; and the county govern- 
ments have also, with but few exce^jtions, 
fallen under the same control. The Legis- 
lature has been overwhelmiugly Democratic 
in both branches. 

It would be strange, considering the cir- 
cumstances and the party strength, if the 
ruling party had been always wise ; but it 
must be said that they have done very few 
wicked or very foolish things. They have 
been fortunate in the possession of a few 
wise and Conservative men, with courage 
enough to make their sentiments known. 
For instance, in the last Legislature a stupid 
old Bourbon introduced a bill to make a 
breach of contract by a negro a penal oifense. 
But Mr. Furlow, a strong Democrat, but a 
sensible man, rose at once, and declared that 
he would oppose such a measure as long as 
he lived ; that, in his experience, if you pay 
a negro and treat him honestly, he will work 
fairly and stick to his contract. Furlow is 
a popular man, and has the courage of his 
opinions ; and the result was that, in a house 
of one hundred and thirty members, only 
twelve votes were cast for the bill. 

In like manner, the Toombs men, who are 
the Bourbons in Georgia, have tried, on dif- 



ferent occasions, to get a constitutional con- 
vention, but have always failed, the consti- 
tution being a sufficiently good instrument. 
So, too, in his last message, Governor Smith, 
who has conducted himself so well in the 
" insurrection " business, urged the Legisla- 
ture to stoji the appropriation of eight thou- 
sand dollars iier annum for the colored uni- 
versity ; and the superintendent of public in- 
struction supported him, believing, as he told 
me, that a normal school for colored teachers 
was more necessary than a university. But, 
in spite of a foolish prejudice against the 
teachers in the university, the Legislature 
refused to do the governor's bidding. 

It is but just to add that, if the dread of 
" social equality " were likely to die out, this 
would be skillfully prevented by some lead- 
ing Republicans, chief of whom is the North- 
ern Methodist Bishop Haven, who has on sev- 
eral occasions openly declared himself in fa- 
vor of " social equality," aud who appears to 
me to have quite a genius for keeping alive 
a subject which naturally stirs up rancorous 
feelings, and which is best left to settle itself. 

The i)rostration of the Republican party 
has given the Democrats such great power 
that they are now on the verge of a quarrel 
among themselves. lu two Cougressioual 
districts, in 1874, Democrats ran against Dem- 
ocrats; in many counties independent can- 
didates were put forward, and, where the 
Republicans were wise enough to support 
them, were elected. There are at this time 
eight or ten candidates for governor. By- 
the-way, Governor Smith is a candidate for 
re-election, and, in view of this fact, his firm 
and just course during the "insurrection" 
excitement shows that he at least believes 
that the white people, whose votes he w^ould 
like to get, are in favor of justice to the ne- 
groes. 

Georgia has some able and many influen- 
tial public men. Unfortunately for the Re- 
publicans, they are all in the Democratic 
party. Governor Brown, who is reputed the 
ablest and most popular man in the State, 
was a Republican in 1868 ; but he is one no 
longer. He is a man of moderate views, a 
lover of justice. Of Mr. Stephens I need not 
speak. He is deeply respected by all Geor- 
gians, who forgive him all his vagaries, and 
will support him for whatever place he de- 
sires, conscious that he will serve them hon- 
estly. General Toombs is a man of but lit- 
tle influence. He has a small and decreas- 
iug following, composed of a few extremists. 



112 



THE COTTON STATES IN 1875. 



Mr. Ben Hill, who is a member of the next 
Congress, Is sijoken of in Georgia as a prod- 
igy, and as certain to make a career in Con- 
gress. He is a ready speaker, and has spok- 
en, in his time, on both sides of several im- 
portant i)ublic questions. There are other 
notable men, but those I have named are the 
leaders of opinion. 

" When the Democrats are so likely to 
split, especially on the nomination for gov- 
ernor, I suppose the Republicans will stand 
ready to support an independent Democrat," 
I said to a leading Republican. 

He replied, " That is not so certain. It is 
more probable that some Republican will be 
selfish enough to demand a nomination for 
himself, will get it with the help of the ne- 
gro, and will, of course, be beaten. The fact 
is," he added, " you can see that there is no 
room here for a Republican party such as ex- 
ists, composed of a few ambitious leaders and 
a mass of ignorant blacks. It is a nuisance." 

Pie was right. Such a party is a danger 
to the community ; and I can not help but 
admire the self-control of the Democrats, 
who, with such overwhelming majorities in 
the Legislature, have committed so few fol- 
lies. Their management has not always been 
wise ; and in the parts of the State remote 
from railroads, there has been maltreatment 
of blacks which was scandalous, and which 
the press did not properly report. Such 
things are getting rare, as I was assured by 
Republicans who were well informed. But 
it seemed to me that both the press and 
many of the jiublic men of the State are 
foolishly timid in rebuking both folly and 
wrong. They have not sufficient confidence 
in the people. 

It was laughable to me to see how timidly 
a part of the press and some of the promi- 
nent public men suijported a movement in 



Atlanta to celebrate last Fourth of July, 
and to see, nevertheless, in what crowds the 
people turned out in the city, and came in 
from the country to join in the celebration 
when it was finally determined on. 

I ought to add, on the authority of several 
Federal office-holders, all earnest Republic- 
ans, that the bar of the State, in matters 
where justice to the colored people is con- 
cerned, is not chargeable with neglect or 
cowardice. They assured me positively that 
lawyers all over the State, from the highest 
to the least, were always ready to defend a 
negro in a court of justice, if called on. The 
condi;ct of the recent conspiracy trials shows 
this to be true. 

The difficulty in Georgia is that black and 
white, Republican and Democratic, dema- 
gogues unite in maintaining the color-line in 
]iolitics. The bad Democrat does not object, 
for it enables him to control the State. The 
bad Republican likes it, for it makes him a 
martyr, and gives him what he longs for — a 
Federal office — or at least the excuse for de- 
manding one. Governor Smith spoke wise- 
ly when he said to me that only when the 
color-line was broken could the politics of 
the State be settled, and this would bring 
absolute security to the negro. There is no 
doubt, too, that the Civil Rights Bill and the 
Force Bill, and all the other eff'orts made to 
maintain in the South a spurious Republic- 
an party, such as giving many of the Fed- 
eral offices to men who have no real hold or 
influence in their State — all these things 
have only tended to band the white voters 
together in a more and more inflexible op- 
position to the Federal administration, and 
to band the ignorant blacks together, and 
subject them to the rule of demagogues, 
leavinsr the moderate men of both sides 
without their just voice or influence. 



THE END. 



THE COTTON STATES 



IN THE 



SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1875. 



Br CHARLES NORDHOFF, 



ATJTHOK OP 



'THE COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES OP THE UNITED STATES/' "POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMER- 
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ERN CALIFORNIA, OREGON, AND THE SANDWICH ISLANDS," 
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